


Evenfall

by HunterHGatherer



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Asian Esme Cullen, Autistic Bella Swan, BAMF Bella Swan, Bella Swan with a Backbone, Black Rosalie Hale, Dracula Influence/References, F/F, F/M, Himbo Emmett Cullen, Human Bella Swan, In this house we love and respect Rosalie Hale, Romance, Sad Edward Cullen, Twilight not by a mormon, Twilight with folklore vampires, Twilight without incest, Twilight without racism, Twilight without sexism, Vampires, teenagers being teenagers, twilight - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterHGatherer/pseuds/HunterHGatherer
Summary: "In the end she had to admit that she probably wouldn’t puzzle over Edward Cullen's bizarre behaviour were he not so annoyingly good looking, an ugly ginger boy being weird and socially awkward would perversely make sense."A rewrite of Twilight with folklore/traditional vampires and without all the awful sexism and racism.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Jessica Stanley/Angela Weber
Comments: 21
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dude, your stepdad’s a total DILF!” Lauren assessed loudly, making the boys groan and Jess scooch her seat over to get a better look, with Angela just giving her a sympathetic smile.

If you had to ask Bella why she found the sparse Pheonix landscape quite so beautiful, she’d have a rough time explaining in a way that made sense even to her, the word craggy would probably make an appearance. She had unconventional taste, so sue her; she was never usually so acutely aware of that fact than she was at that moment. Driving through the outskirts of Forks, Washington she could see why it held such an appeal, the place exploded with nature, great big, wet green from all sides. It was fine, pretty, even, but it wasn’t home. Well, that was exactly the problem, it was home. It had all been a blur really, a sad, self-sacrificing blur. Worst of all her reluctant move to her green hometown had come from an undeniably good thing. Her mom had finally met the love of her life, promptly married him and got pregnant with his baby. All brilliant things, except neither her mom or new stepdad exactly made bank and when her mom was now in desperate need of a spare room it made perfect sense for her to reconnect with her father and see out high school in her birth town. Which is how she found herself in her current predicament, sat making stilted, if well meaning, conversation with said father on the way to her childhood home. 

The house was much as she remembered it. A small, neat two-bedroom house with white panelling and even a cute little porch. It looked well maintained to her relief, she’d worried what life with Charlie, a bachelor in his late 30s, might look like. A drab untidy home with no food in the cupboards perhaps. But the lawn was mown, and everything looked to be in good condition and in its place. That was except for the old, faded truck with a bulbous hood sat innocently on the driveway. 

“Whose truck is that?” Bella asked as they got out the cruiser, going up to get a good look. 

“Oh, that. Call it a homecoming gift,” Charlie told her, busying himself with the luggage so as not to make eye contact. 

“What?” she asked nonplussed, admiring the faded beauty of the old beast. 

“I thought you’d need something to get to school, do you like it?” he explained, almost apologetically, joining her by the truck. 

“It’s amazing! It’s mine?” she’d been expecting to get a shitty retail job and save for one, but hey free truck. 

“It’s nothin’ fancy, but it’s reliable,” he told her, patting the roof fondly. 

“Thanks, dad, I love it,” she told him, going in for the awkward one-armed hug. 

“I want you to be happy here,” he told her, before picking up her bags and heading inside. 

The next hour was spent laying on her bed and unpacking. To her relief, Charlie didn’t hover, she was left to be productive and angst in equal measures. Unpacking made it real, which was stupid since she’d unpacked on her annual trips to California with her dad and she’d only been there for a week. Maybe it was the effort Charlie had gone to. The bed was freshly made with new linens, the curtains were also newly purchased along with an unfamiliar rug and desk now sat in the corner. She wondered what her mom was doing now. With the time difference she was probably cooking dinner with Phil or sleeping. She did a lot of that now adays. It was fair she guessed, growing a human being was a lot of work. Her wardrobe and shelves now full, she wondered what to do. Usually, she’d fuck about online for a while, but even that didn’t hold much appeal. She spied her toiletry bag in the suitcase and decided a bath was in order, anything to sooth her frayed nerves. God, she felt like the heroine in a Victorian novel fainting at any mention of conflict. She was fine for god sake! She just had to get through the first day. She wasn’t the only teenager to move schools mid-term after all. 

It wasn’t just the first day jitters plaguing her, though. No, those would go away. She didn’t relate well to people her age. At one point she’d thought it was because she was so mature and not boy crazy like most other girl’s her age. Thankfully she’d grown out of that. She was just awkward; she didn’t know how to make conversation and large crowds unsettled her, which was the antithesis of high school. She took her time in the bath, managing to coax her tense muscle to let go a little. She washed her shoulder length brown hair and even did a face mask. Unsettled as she may be on the inside, she could at least treat her outsides well. 

She slept ill that night, unused to the constant woosh of the wind and rain against the house. As she stumbled out of bed, she cursed her earlier self for not setting out clothes the night before, she tended to forget how sluggish she could be in the morning. She quickly chose some jeans, a t shirt and a patterned shirt she left open over it. She threw down some cereal, brushed her teeth hastily and grabbed the keys of her new car from the hook by the door. It seemed Charlie rose early and returned home late, almost like she had her own place. The truck was noisy with a faded interior, but it was clean and had obviously been well looked after. It was driving the two miles in the Forks downpour that she truly appreciated not having to walk to school. 

She’d been told to register at the main office, which was helpfully located at the front of the school, if you could call it that, it was a collection of small brick buildings backing onto the woods with a parking lot attached. There wasn’t a fence in sight. Where was the sense of institution, security? The front desk was manned by a short middle-aged red-headed woman who eyed her curiously before a look of recognition dawned on her face. 

“Isabella?” Ah, so Charlie had stuck to her full name, the name she never used. 

“Bella,” she corrected for probably the first of many times. 

“We’ve been expecting you. I’m Ms Cope. I have some things for you here,” she introduced, digging through the crowded desk and producing some sheets of paper, “here’s your timetable, and here’s a map.” 

“Right, thanks. Do I need to get anything signed?” she asked taking the papers. 

“No, you’re already registered. Hopefully the map is easy to read, but if you have any problems feel free to ask your classmates and they’ll be happy to help. Are there any questions you have for me?” She asked. 

“Uh, no. I don’t think so. Thanks,” she replied, distracted getting the paper in her bag in preparation for the rain. 

“Well, if you think of any, don’t hesitate to ask your teachers, or come and find me. Have a great first day, dear.” 

“Thank you,” and with that she was gone back into the cold and rain. 

She found her homeroom with relative ease, since there were few buildings, all of which were labelled. She was early, but to her distress there were already three people waiting by the classroom. When her wet boot squeaked on the floor, she was met with three sets of curious eyes, their conversation about Henry Cavill’s leggings in The Witcher coming to an abrupt halt. There were two girls, one tall with long light brown hair and the other short with curly black hair kept natural. The boy was a generic white boy with short Blonde hair and a toothy grin. Bella knew she should go up to them, say hi and introduce herself, should do anything other than standing awkwardly in the corridor not making eye contact with any of them. 

“You’re Isabella Swan, right?” the boy asked. 

“Yeah,” she replied dumbly. 

“Is this your home room?” the shorter girl asked. 

“Yeah,” she repeated. 

“Cool,” the boy reacted. 

“What are your names?” she asked, finally remembering basic fucking conversation. 

“I’m Mike,” Mike told her, “this is Angela and Jess,” he introduced the taller and shorter girl in turn. 

“You’re from Arizona, right?” Jess asked, to her immense relief. 

“Yeah, Pheonix, well Forks originally, but I’ve lived in Arizona most of my life,” she told them and they nodded along as though they actually found it interesting. 

“How come you came back now?” Jess asked, going right for it, to Angela’s apparent horror. 

“My mom’s having a baby which wouldn’t be great for my school, so I decided to spend some time in my hometown,” she gave them the rose-tinted version. 

“So, you’re here until graduation?” Jess pursued. 

“Yeah, if I don’t get drowned by the rain first,” she joked. 

“Oh god, don’t get this one started on the rain, you’d think he hadn’t lived here most of his life,” Jess pointedly directed at Mike. 

“You’ve not always lived in Forks,” she surmised. 

“I’m from California,” he told her. 

“Which has rain sometimes,” Jess fired back. 

“It is what Forks does best,” Angela interjected before their bickering escalated any further. 

Before their conversation could continue, their homeroom teacher arrived and as it was a free-for-all for seats and she sat with her new friends. It seemed her fear of being stared at all day was an accurate one, as even in the back of the room eyes seemed to find her. After roll call, they compared schedules and to her relief she shared most of her classes with at least one of them. Her first class of the day was English which she shared with Mike and Angela whose teacher, Mr Mason thankfully didn’t make her introduce herself and she was seated nearby Mike and Angela. The syllabus seemed a standard mix of Chaucer, Bronte and Shakespeare and she spaced out of the lecture about the use of setting in Wuthering Heights to wonder if she could repurpose her old essays to save on workload. 

She joined Jess for Spanish and Trigonometry, which she was inclined to hate already, which was confirmed when dickhead extrordinaire Mr Varner made her stand at the front and not only introduce herself but share a fact about herself, which she stumbled through in a way that seemed to gratify some kid-hating instinct in the jaded teacher. As such, Bella was happy to follow Jesses lead of ignoring him and chatting quietly about all the school gossip Jess deemed it important for her to be up to date with. Bella thanked god that Jess was more than satisfied with her nodding along quietly, only adding the odd comment when something occurred to her. 

The cafeteria was gratifyingly adequate and by the time she and Jess had gotten their food, there were strangers at the table alongside Mike and Angela. 

“Bella, this is Lauren and Lee,” Angela introduced, Lauren was a short blonde and Lee was an average height brunette guy, hair less styled than Mike’s but seeming friendly enough. 

“Hi,” they both offered, Lee giving a small wave. 

It seemed Mike and Angela had filled them in with the basic details and she thankfully didn’t have to repeat them. They too seemed actually interested in the mundane details of Bella’s life, it seemed the small town was as lacking in news as she had feared, but she was glad of the readily provided conversation. When the conversation came to the subject of her stepdad Phil’s job, their interest peaked, it was understandable, she was related to a minor celebrity after all, extremely minor as he was. 

“So, like a professional player?” Lee questioned as Lauren was busy on her phone. 

“Yeah, he’s on the professional circuit, but it’s in Jacksonville so its relative,” she was careful not to oversell his position. 

“This him?” Lauren asked, showing his team’s Instagram with a shot of him. 

“Yep, that’s Phil,” she nodded. 

“Dude, your stepdad’s a total DILF!” Lauren assessed loudly, making the boys groan and Jess scooch her seat over to get a better look, with Angela just giving her a sympathetic smile. 

“Uh huh?” Bella guessed she could see the appeal of the whole pro-athlete thing, especially since every teenage girl now seemed to fancied older men from tv shows, but he was too much of a relative for the whole thing to not be uncomfortable. 

“I’m sorry, man, I don’t make the rules,” Jess confirmed, “wait you said your mom’s pregnant?” 

“Uh, yeah,” she feared where this was headed. 

“Shit, daddy’s gonna be a daddy,” she pronounced, which launched another round of groaning, with Lauren scrolling for of their instagram. 

It was sat in a small cafeteria surrounded by strangers listening to her knew friends discuss how attractive her stepdad was that she first saw them. They were sat in the far corner away from the other students and unlike everyone else weren’t busy chatting. But that wasn’t what drew her attention and kept it. They were all devastatingly beautiful, in an unsettling Hollywood way, yet they looked out of place, as though they’d been taken from the movies of yesteryears and put together. There were two girls and three boys, the girls were opposites in most every way, similar only in beauty. One was by far the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen; she was tall with burnt umber skin that seemed to glow in the sunlight, her hair was worn natural and reached her shoulders and her bone structure looked as though she’d been carved by a master sculptor. The other girl was tiny, and Bella was hardly tall herself at 5’5”, she was short and thin with porcelain pale skin, her inky black hair cut short and spiky and her features were delicate as a pixie. The boys were less disparate in appearance, though equally beautiful. The tall girl was with a giant of a boy who looked old enough to be in college at least, he was seriously broad and muscled with a dark brown hair styled in an impressive quiff. The elfin girl was holding hands with a stocky boy with longish honey blonde hair and a similar pallor as his girlfriend. The third boy was without a companion and maybe it was that which caught her eye, or his mess of dark ginger curls, handsome as the others, he looked more approachable, younger perhaps, though he still had the face of some pretty white boy from a Netflix teen drama. 

“Who are they?” slipped from her mouth and Bella was relieved that only Angela had caught the question, the others engrossed in their own conversations, which had thankfully strayed from how much they’d bang her stepdad, sure enough her tone told Angela just who she was talking about and they both looked to their corner table. 

“Those are the Cullens,” she told her, ducking her head closer so as not to alert the whole table to the topic of conversation, for which Bella was endlessly thankful. 

“Are they related?” she wondered aloud. 

“No, they’re foster kids, Dr and Mrs Cullen look after them,” she explained. 

“Wow, five foster kids? That’s nice of them,” she remarked when to her horror the ginger boy turned his gaze to her and caught them staring, they looked away quickly, Bella flushing red. 

“I think Emmett and Edward are brothers, Mrs Cullen’s cousin’s kids or something, they keep to themselves though. They came here in September and no one really knows anything about them,” Angela continued on, determinedly not looking their way again. 

“The system can be pretty rough, apparently,” Bella remarked, though she knew little more than rumours about foster care, and she dared another peak their way. 

“Oh totally, but Dr Cullen’s really nice. I don’t think anyone’s met the mom, or I haven’t at least,” she explained, skimping on the gossip unlike Jess, but this time around Bella would appreciate it, there was something intriguing about them. 

“Which ones are Edward and Emmett?” she enquired. 

“Emmett’s the... big one,” she laughed awkwardly, “Edward’s the ginger,” huh, so Edward was the one who’d caught them looking, “Emmett’s girlfriend is Rosalie and the other girl’s Alice and her boyfriend’s Jasper.” 

“They’re all... together?” Bella puzzled. 

“Uh, yeah. Apparently, they all came into the same household when they were older? So, I guess they don’t feel like siblings. I can’t say people haven’t gossiped, though,” she explained quickly. 

“Huh,” she replied, somewhat struck dumb. 

They were interrupted from their musings by the bell and Bella accompanied Angela and Mike to Biology. The room filled quickly until the only unoccupied seat was by Edward fucking Cullen, the guy she’d just been caught staring at. Mr Banner didn’t fuss with introductions, simply waving her to the only available seat. She could’ve anticipated a bit of awkwardness between them, since she’d so clearly been gossiping about him, but she never could’ve expected his actual reaction. As she approached him, it was as though every joint in his body ceased making him rigid as a board, grasping the edge of the table in a death grip. Though she didn’t actually see the movement, by the time she’d sat down, he was sat at the far edge of the table, seat angled away from her. Fantastic, the only empty seat was by a fucking weirdo. Banner thankfully began the lecture then before there could be any further interaction. They were learning about cellular anatomy, which she’d already covered, still, she made dutiful, detailed notes to occupy herself. During the pause of Banner switching slide shows, Bella made the fatal mistake of glancing over at Edward to find his eyes already fixed on her, glaring at her so hatefully it was as though she’d just personally stabbed him then told him to get over it. She jerked away instinctively as though she’d been shocked and spent the rest of the class blocked from his gaze by a curtain of hair. 

Edward was the first to bolt up as the bell rang and he practically ran from the room in his enthusiasm to get out of there, completely ignoring the rebuke from Banner that he dismissed them, not the bell. Mike met her by her desk as everyone filed out, ugh that’s right, they rounded out the day with gym, which to her disgust wasn’t optional past tenth grade like it had been in Pheonix. Still, she doubted coach would make her dress down today which was at least something. 

“So, did you stab Cullen with a pen or something?” Mike asked. 

“What?” she asked, her heart sinking, so other people noticed. 

“He looked like he was in physical pain,” Mike elaborated. 

“He was just like that when I got there, didn’t say a word to me the whole time” she brushed off, so he wasn’t normally like that. 

“I wouldn’t think too much about it, he’s a weird guy,” he reassured as they approached the gym, “I mean, if I was lucky enough to sit next to you, I’d at least talk to you.” 

“Maybe he ate something bad,” she redirected as they split up at the changing rooms, huh, so Mike was gonna be like that. 

She got out of gym, much to her relief, it wouldn’t do to injure her classmates on her first day with her wildly flailing limbs. It did leave her with an hour to think, however, and that wasn’t a positive thing. Her thoughts inevitably landed with Edward Cullen, maybe he was just horrifically awkward around girls, but no, he must sit next to others in some of his classes and Mike would have mentioned that surely. In the end she had to admit that she probably wouldn’t puzzle over his bizarre behaviour were he not so annoyingly good looking, an ugly ginger boy being weird and socially awkward would perversely make sense. She’d decided to put it out of her mind by the time the bell roused her from her musings. She found Angela and Jess waiting outside the gym and they greeted her warmly. 

“Hey, do you need a ride?” Jess asked, “I drive Mike and Angela home.” 

“I’m good, thanks. I have that monster,” she pointed over to the truck. 

“I wondered who's that was!” she exclaimed. 

Mike joined them then and the conversation went to a blow by blow of the badminton match he’d just won. She joined them in teasing him for how seriously he took the game and it struck her just how welcomed she’d been made after just one day and she was walked to her truck with the promise to meet by homeroom the next day. When she was sat in her truck, heat blasting, playlist on, she’d almost forgotten about weird Cullen. That was until she pulled into the queue of cars, behind a silver Volvo that she was met with the hateful staring eyes of Edward Cullen in the rear-view mirror. She was so taken aback that she held up traffic enough to prompt a series of horns, red faced she drove away. Man, fuck Edward Cullen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, you gonna become a big hiker?” he asked dryly, he was well aware of her clumsiness. 
> 
> “Oh yeah, I’m gonna conquer the Olympic Mountain Range by the time I start senior year,” she replied equally dryly.

The constant pounding of wind and rain didn’t let up once that night and when she did fall asleep, it was to dreams of wild storms and great winds howling across the moors. Not that she’d ever been to a moor before, nor even seen one outside of a movie, but tell her subconscious that. Charlie was waiting at the breakfast table this time, already in his cop uniform, nursing a cup of coffee and reading the news on his phone, the old radio was tuned to an 80s rock station, it seemed an established ritual, one she felt hesitant to interrupt for a moment. 

“Morning Bella,” he exclaimed with a smile when he noticed her in the doorway, “sorry I wasn’t here yesterday morning, we’ve been a little short staffed.” 

“It’s alright, protect and serve and all that,” she told him, taking a seat with her own mug of coffee and pouring some cereal. One thing she could say for Charlie, he made good coffee. 

“So, I’ve been thinking,” well that was never a good sentence start, “you’re home alone a lot in the evenings so for security I was thinking...” 

“I’m not getting a gun, or learning or whatever,” she interrupted reflexively. 

“What?” he exclaimed, “I’m not giving a seventeen-year-old a gun,” he rolled his eyes at the idea, “no, kiddo, I was talking about getting a dog.” 

“Huh?” she asked, feeling whiplashed at the subject change. 

“I know I’d feel better if you weren’t alone in the evenings,” he explained. 

“Really?” she wondered distantly if this was a divorced parent thing, buy a dog so your kid likes being at your house. 

“One of the fella's dogs at the station had a litter a few weeks back. You’d need to do a lot of the walking and the training, but if you want one...” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Of course! Tell me everything, how old are they? Wait, what breed?” she asked excited, which seemed to both startle and gratify Charlie. 

By the time she’d ascertained the puppies were month old German Shepherds, thrown down a quick bowl of cereal and brushed her teeth, she was rushing out the door to make it in time for homeroom. She pulled into a terrible space, but managed to get to her seat, which they’d saved for her, just before roll call. 

“We thought you wouldn’t make it,” Jess said as roll call wrapped and the morning announcements were sedately read by a disinterested teacher. 

“I got kinda held up. We’re getting a dog,” she explained happily. 

“Aww, what kind?” Angela asked. 

“German Shepherd,” she replied. 

“Will it be a police dog?” Mike asked. 

“Uh, no,” the thought of the chief living with a police dog was such a small-town notion. 

They wiled away homeroom with dog talk and by the time the bell rang, her new friends had entered into a sort of competition for naming rights of the puppy, the right which would be won by coming up with the best name. This game paused for classes and resumed when walking to a new room with a various combination of new friends. Varner continued in his running as dickhead of the year by springing a pop quiz on them, telling Bella to simply ‘do her best’ when she raised the valid point that she’d only been there a day and was behind on the material. Let’s just say that by lunch she wasn’t in the best mood and that ratcheted to a crescendo as she entered the cafeteria and looked to the corner table, expecting to see the unfriendly glare of Edward Cullen. But the table held only four, Edward not among them. Maybe she’d been right, he’d eaten something bad, but the specific hatred and fury of his gaze still nagged at the back of her mind. 

Lunch passed in much the same way as the day before, she sat with her new friends and they chatted about fun, inconsequential things. With her first day nerves largely abated, and her worst fears of complete social isolation not realised, she was able to notice more of the nuances in the friend group. Like how Jess always seemed to sit next to Angela and always kept her involved in the conversation, even if she wasn’t contributing to it. Or how Lauren would look displeased whenever Mike spent too much time focussed just on Bella and would entice him into a group conversation, which she let happen readily enough, she didn’t need to be making waves already, it also didn’t hurt that she had no interest in Mike in that way. 

She still half expected to see Edward in Biology and only fully relaxed once the bell rung and he wasn’t there. She settled into learning, or rather refreshing her knowledge of cellular mitosis. It was simple, and she got lost in the familiarity of it and before long it was dreaded gym time. Her tactic, which was tried and tested was to stick to the back and keep out of people’s way. It seemed volleyball was a favourite for indoor gym class in the town of perpetual rain. Her plan worked until a stray ball headed back and she was called upon to hit it, which she managed to hit into the head of a girl in front of her. After a flurry of apologies, she was tasked with keeping score, a much more manageable task. The day followed much as the previous day with Jess and Angela again meeting them outside gym, this time regaled with the lethal strike force of Bella. At least there was sympathy mixed with their laughter as she explained how she had once nearly broken her nose falling into a lamppost. 

She felt at a loose end as she arrived home to the empty house, yesterday she’d been occupied with the adrenaline of the first day and the righteous anger at Edward Cullen, but today she was presented with a long, empty evening. She had that English essay she could knock out, but if she did that now what would she do that weekend? Jess would probably like to hang out, Mike definitely would, but she wouldn’t be the one to ask, at least not the first time, Bella was self-aware enough to know that was beyond her. Maybe it would be nice to cook for Charlie sometimes, he’d not said about the labour divide, but he was letting her stay there and he did work long hours, god, she’d need to communicate like the nearly adult she was. Not enjoying the uncertainty, she decided on re-reading Wuthering Heights to at least be productive. She got lost in the familiar, if gloomy narrative and only stopped when Charlie came home, stepping out of his boots and hanging up his gun, by that time she was halfway through and it had gotten dark around her. It seemed Charlie had been waiting for her second day to question her about school. 

“How’s school?” he asked, as they dined on his very adequate steak and potatoes. 

“It’s good, everyone seems nice,” she gave her bland answer. 

“Yeah?” he perked up, “you make friends?” 

“Yeah, I have the same people in my homeroom and a bunch of classes that I sit with at lunch,” she explained noncommittally. 

“What are their names?” he asked, of course, a dad in a small town would actually remember the names of his daughter’s friends. 

“There’s Jess, Mike and Angela. Everyone seems really nice.” 

“Mike, Mike Newton?” he asked, of course he zeroed in on the boy. 

“Yeah, we’re in the same homeroom,” she explained, hoping he’d drop it. 

“You like this Mike guy?” Huh, apparently not. 

“Everyone seems pretty nice so far,” no need to mention the weird Cullen boy. 

“His folks own the big camping place outside town, make a small killing from all the backpackers coming through,” he explained, seeming satisfied there were no boys to tell her she was too good for. 

“He said something about jobs there in the summer,” she told him. 

“Yeah, you gonna become a big hiker?” he asked dryly, he was well aware of her clumsiness. 

“Oh yeah, I’m gonna conquer the Olympic Mountain Range by the time I start senior year,” she replied equally dryly. 

The week continued on in its familiar pattern, she spent time with her new friends and actually got to know them, she got settled into her classes and fell into a routine of chores, Charlie would shop, they’d alternate cooking, she did laundry, he did dishes, it was a good little life she was carving out for herself. She tried to relax and enjoy it, but at the back of her mind lingered the Edward Cullen problem. Well, lack of a problem, well... Since that one weird Biology class he’d vanished. Even her friends had commented on his absence. The rational part of her brain knew that it couldn’t be her fault, they’d not even spoken, she’d done nothing to this guy, they were strangers. But the primal part of her brain had recognised the hatred in his eyes, like a predator that wanted to kill her. Every time her mind went down that path, she had to shake her head and think of something else. 

As predicted, she spent the weekend working on her English essay. Charlie seemed to think it was proper to be at home for her first weekend, as it seemed he was never out of work, but after they spent Saturday in companionable silence, in the lounge, her on her laptop and Charlie watching the history channel he deemed he could leave her on Sunday to go fishing with his buddies without guilt. By Sunday afternoon she was caught up on all her work and left at a loose end. In the end it was decided for her when she read her mom’s increasingly frantic texts demanding she call, or she’d reach out to Charlie. It was typical of her mom and she geared herself up to call. She didn’t not get along with her mom, it was just tiring. Living with Charlie made her appreciate how little her mom had been a parent rather than a roommate. Renee didn’t distribute chores, if Bella didn’t shop for groceries, they’d only be there sometimes. 

“Bella? Bella, where have you been?” Her mom demanded, picking up on the second ring. 

“At school mostly, I texted you when my plane landed, I was waiting for something to happen before I called,” she told her, calming her down. 

“How is it? How’s the house? Is Charlie being nice? How’s school?” she barraged her with questions. 

“The house is nice, Charlie got me a desk and some other stuff for my room. School’s good,” she told her, searching for details from her one week in Forks. 

“Are they nice to you? Are there any boys? Has it rained yet?” she continued to release her week of curiosity. 

“Everyone’s been pretty nice. I’ve made some new friends, some of them are boys, but not like that. And mom, come on, its Forks, of course it's raining,” she explained, “how are things there? How’s the pregnancy?” 

“Oh god, my ankles are so swollen! I thought something must be wrong, but the drs checked me over and apparently, I’m normal. God, I don’t remember it being this bad with you. I had the weird cravings, like I just can’t get enough of watermelon, but with mayo, if you can believe it! But the rest is like a billion times worse,” she rambled on happily as she often did. 

“How’s Phil?” Bella asked, to be polite, Phil was the sort of guy who was always doing just fine. 

“He’s good, he is so excited for the baby, designing the nursery, god there are so many colour options. I mean what’s the difference between baby and duck egg blue for crying out loud?!” She exclaimed. 

“Umm, one’s darker, I think?” 

“That’s not really my point, but oh honey, I miss you so much! The house is empty without you,” she told her, voice getting emotional. 

“I miss you too, mom, but everyone’s been really welcoming here, except I think Charlie’s been calling me Isabella” she told her. 

“Well, it is your grandmother’s name, they all probably knew her,” she reminded, and it was weird for Bella to hear her talk about Forks, she’d always tried to avoid it. 

“I’ve gotta go mom, I’ve got homework to do,” she lied, wanting to end the call. 

“Okay honey, well I love you, call me more often!” she chided. 

“I love you too, mom, bye,” she hung up the phone quickly, it could be exhausting to talk to her mom. 

When she woke up Monday, she knew something was off, the sunlight was too bright for Forks and she ran to her window, thinking for a moment it may be sunshine. Of course, she was wrong, but she couldn’t have imagined how bad it was. The ground was thinly coated in white and swirls of snow continued to fall lazily from the sky. Ugh, snow. Sure, she’d never technically seen snow before, or experienced it, but snow would melt, and she’d be colder and wetter than she perpetually already was. She pulled on her warmest clothes, her many layers adding a distinct bulk to her slight frame and Charlie actually laughed when he saw her. 

“Don’t think you’re being a little dramatic, Bell?” Charlie asked through his chuckles. 

“I’m from Arizona, dad,” she reminded, feeling criminally misunderstood. 

“We’ll make a Forks girl out of you yet,” he said a little wistfully, and oh fuck, she was an asshole, of course the reminder that she’d been taken from him as a baby and had never spent the winter with him before was upsetting. 

“First snowfall, you never know, I may love it,” she changed tact. 

“Uh huh,” he looked thoroughly unconvinced, “try not to fall over, it’s a little icy.” 

It took every ounce of her concentration and limited balance to make it down the driveway to her truck unscathed. When she was settled, heat blasting, it was only to drive at roughly 5 miles an hour. The parking lot was alive with snowball fights and students getting video of the snow. Mike wasn’t waiting with Jess and Angela by homeroom and Bella could only imagine that the Golden Retriever personified was loving the snow. It turned out that snow was pretty to look at and it had to be above freezing to snow, so she thawed slightly towards it, still she chose to remain indoors at lunch with the girls rather than joining the epic battle with the Mike and Lee. She was all settled down to eat the approximation of pizza when... 

“Edward Cullen is staring at you,” Jess stage whispered to her and it was like snow had been dumped down her back. 

“Does he look mad?” she blurted impulsively. 

“No. Why, should he?” Jess asked perplexed. 

“I sit next to him in Biology, he was really weird to me,” she explained, aware that she now had Lauren and Angela’s attention. 

“Cullen’s a weirdo,” Lauren said firmly, “I tried to talk to him when they first came here, he totally blanked me.” 

Bella chanced a look over to the Cullen table, he was staring at her still, but it had none of the hostility from before, it was more a confused sort of curiosity. They all looked more normal, approachable. Maybe it was the melted snow making their hair all messy or their faces flushed from the snow. Whatever it was, the snow days made them look younger, freer. Big, brawny Emmett was shaking his wet hair like a dog all over the girls. She turned around, determinedly ignoring him. 

“What did you do your English essay on?” Angela asked, deflecting attention from Bella’s awkwardness, “I found it really tough.” 

“The relationship between power and gender, how about you?” Bella told her and this was enough for Lauren and Jess to drop the Cullen topic and start their own conversation. 

A knot grew in her stomach the closer to Biology she got, he seemed so normal today, well comparatively. She tried to focus on the silver lining that at least the snow had stopped. His seat was empty when she came into the room. Banner was already there distributing microscopes and slides to each table. She determinedly didn’t look at the door, instead focussing on getting her textbook, notebook and pen from her bag. She felt his presence before she saw him and barely supressed a flinch. He sat and she prepared herself for an awkward, silent class made worse by the partner work in that day's lesson. 

“Hello,” a soft musical voice spoke from next to her and her head snapped up, "My name is Edward Cullen, I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan.” 

“How do you know my name?” she asked dumbstruck by his personality change and his annoyingly pretty smile now making an appearance. 

“I think everyone in Forks knows your name,” he replied swiftly. 

“Right,” cool, not creepy at all, “so you won’t be weird again today?” her mouth asked without her brain’s permission and he actually lost his winning smile and looked shocked at her remark, which gratified her greatly. 

“Weird?” he asked, clearly fighting for composure. 

“Unless you normally glare at people and today is a fluke,” she continued, loving to see Mr Beautiful’s feathers ruffled. 

“I-” he began, before he was interrupted by Banner calling the class to order, she turned to face the front smugly. 

“Right, so today we’re doing a lab, as you can see. You each have the slides of an onion root cell in each stage of mitosis. In your partners you’ll need to identify the phase and put them in order and no, you can’t use your textbooks,” he explained. 

“Ladies first,” Edward invited after a beat. 

She went ahead and sorted the slide; she was showing off a little since she’d done the lab back home in Pheonix. It was pretty basic, and she soon had her answer. 

“Prophase,” she stated confidently. 

“Mind if I check?” he asked and she looked at him appalled, who the fuck was this guy. 

“If you want,” she replied icily, sliding the microscope over to him. 

“Prophase,” he agreed after a brief look, promptly writing it on the worksheet and switching slides. 

“Like I said,” she couldn’t help reminding. 

“Anaphase,” he quickly assessed. 

“Mind if I check?” she parroted. She reached for the microscope as he did and their hands touched briefly, it was ice cold, as though he’d been holding it in the snow outside. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, retracting his hand quickly. 

“Anaphase,” she agreed, disappointed, not missing his smirk as she set up the next slide. 

“Like I said,” he parroted, smiling again. 

“Interphase,” she concluded, sliding the microscope for him to check before he could ask, he checked and simply wrote it down that time. 

They were done before anyone else and she learnt from a brief peak around that it seemed to be causing great difficulty for the rest of the class with many using their books under the desk, which Banner was completely oblivious to on his laptop it seemed he’d fancied busy work that day. This left her nothing else to do for the rest of the hour. 

“It’s a shame about the snow, isn’t it?” Edward asked. Oh fuck, he was making conversation. Bella couldn’t decide if this was better or worse than weird Ed. 

“Not really,” she replied honestly, she didn’t have the energy to make polite small talk. 

“You don’t like the cold,” he concluded, looking only mildly put off. 

“Or the wet. So, like the opposite of Forks.” 

“Why did you come here, then?” he asked, the first person to say it and not expect a polite, positive answer. 

“My mom’s having a baby,” she explained, hoping that was enough explanation for him. 

“You don’t like babies?” he asked. 

“No, they’re fine. Just expensive and take up a lot of room. We only had a two-bedroom place,” she told him, annoyed by the honesty his pretty eyes and smile were coaxing out of her. 

“Babies don’t need a bedroom for like two years, by then you’d be in college?” Edward asked, getting to the heart of the issue concisely. 

“Yup,” she agreed, annoyed at the vulnerability. 

“And you didn’t want to come to Forks?” he asked, caught between confused and something else, maybe sympathy. 

“I chose to come,” she asserted defiantly. 

“I don’t understand,” he admitted, “you don’t like Forks.” 

“It’s nothing personal. I miss living in a city and the weather,” she tried to explain without really explaining. 

“But you came here anyway, even though you weren’t asked,” he again stated, turned to face her completely, looking actually concerned with the answer. 

“Before I could be asked,” she admitted, she’d not spoken about it with anyone before. 

“You think you’re being replaced,” he surmised. 

“What the fuck?” she demanded; spell broken “who the fuck says that?” 

“I’m sorry, I’ve upset you,” he apologised, looking perplexed. 

“No. Why would a stranger making assumptions about my personal life upset me?” she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm, “why do you care anyway?” 

“I don’t know,” he admitted, looking lost. 

Bella turned to the front then and they passed the remainder of the class in silence. When left to her own thoughts the embarrassment crept in. Why had she shared all of those things with a stranger? It was those damned pretty eyes, they were light ochre, golden in the light and they invited her trust, when he wasn’t glaring at her that was. Gym was a relief after Biology, which was a first and it passed by with no complaint from her. Her mind, which loved a puzzle, was from her time with Edward Cullen. Had she imagined him being such an asshole?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, your boi's been applying for uni and its been draining all my energy

To her horror, the snow of the previous day was replaced with rain, which had overnight frozen into a slick layer coating the ground. Even wrapped up in her winter gear Bella was chilled to the bone and thoroughly miserable as she made the treacherous way to her truck. The ride was smoother than expected which she’d assumed had been due to her snail's pace, which had made her one of the last to arrive, resigning her to one of the crappier spots. As she got a proper look at her tires this assumption was proven false, her truck’s tires were criss crossed with snow chains. She felt a pang of unexpected emotion at the sight. It was an unfamiliar experience, being taken care of, he must have seen the icy roads coming and gotten up who knows how early to keep her safe as possible. She was consumed with this feeling, a lump of emotion in her throat, stood at the back of her truck when she registered a few things all at once in the clarity of a moment. Edward Cullen was approaching her, only a few steps away, a deafening metalic screeching and the quickly skidding van on a collision course with the back of her truck, where she stood. 

She’d never spent much time wondering what her reaction would be like in a crisis, but her freezing like a deer in headlights wasn’t a massive surprise as she stood rooted to the spot, watching the proceedings, unmoving. Until she wasn’t. She was pushed out the way and into the car next to her before the van had a chance and she watched Edward Cullen in horror, now stood where she had been, getting hit at full force by the back left corner of the van. It bounced off the truck and Edward between it with the sickening screech of scraping metal. She didn’t know what she expected to see, blood maybe, bones in the wrong place, insides on the outside perhaps. She did not expect to see Edward stood where he had been, unaffected, his clothes not even crumpled looking back at her with focussed eyes. The van had to have been going 30 miles an hour, speeding as the driver tried to make it to class on time. It was a large van as well, from before safety features were a priority. 

That’s when the noise started as panicked people ran over to their secluded corner of the lot, probably ready to find a totalled car and injured students, maybe even bodies. Edward continued staring, his pretty ochre eyes imploring, boring into her eyes, though she didn’t know what they asked for, well she did, but her brain simply couldn’t compute the impossible feat she’d just witnessed. It was as though the van had missed him, but she knew what she saw! A heavy van skidding quickly on ice, which should have crushed him. Were he injured, he’d surely react? He looked as though he’d been discovered, like he knew he wouldn’t be hurt rather than an injured person in shock. 

“Someone call an ambulance,” Coach Clapp shouted, having reached the van, opening the driver's side and checking on its occupant. 

This seemed to snap Edward out of his odd daze, and he moved to stand next to Bella, without so much as a limp, standing between the truck and the car next to it. It looked as though they were simply very lucky bystanders, who’d narrowly avoided tragedy. Which is how Coach Clapp found them, as he rounded the back of the van, most likely looking for bodies, or at least more injured. 

“Are you two okay? Any injuries?” Coach demanded with the air of authority and calm head of someone who had obviously been in the military. 

“We’re fine,” Edward replied, with a good impression of a calm voice; Bella was pretty sure that had she tried to speak at that moment it’d just be a horrific croak, perhaps a squeak. 

“Stay here, the ambulance is on their way and the police have been called, they’ll want to check on you,” he instructed before walking away, to check on the driver. 

“I...” Bella croaked, “you...” 

“I pushed you out of the way,” Edward insisted firmly, making aggressive eye contact. 

“And got hit by a van!” she whisper-shouted, mindful of how crazy it would sound to bystanders even through the haze of shock making her brain sluggish. 

“Look at me,” he instructed, “I’m fine.” 

“How? Edward you should be dead, or maimed” she matched his aggressive tone, “how are you alright? Are you sure you don’t have some horrific internal injuries you don’t know about because of shock?” 

“I... I wouldn’t know about it?” he wondered aloud, looking thrown through a loop. 

“Edward, what’s happening?” she asked, voice softened with her utter confusion and the vulnerability it brought. 

“What matters is that we’re both fine. The van skidded and hit your truck. And that’s what we’ll tell them?” He questioned. 

“You saved me, you pushed me out of the way and survived a hit from a van unscathed, how?” She asked. 

“No one will believe you,” he changed tact, his voice going ice cold. 

“I don’t want to tell anyone,” she retorted angrily, “I just want to understand.” 

Before anymore could be said, Chief Swan, Coach Clapp and the principal rounded the corner of the van and Bella braced herself for the panic Charlie had no doubt worked himself into. Of course, in a small town a simple icy car crash would, or even could be attended by the chief of police 

“Bella, are you alright?” he demanded, eyeing her proximity to Edward suspiciously. 

“I’m fine, dad. It was a near miss, just one of those freak accidents,” she reassured him, though in reality she had no idea if she was alright, perhaps a mental breakdown at the impossibility she’d just witnessed was in the post. 

“I, I may have called your mom when I heard...” Charlie admitted hesitantly. 

“What?! Dad, you know she’ll be freaking out,” she groaned, mindful of the persuasion it’ll take to convince her mom she’d okay. 

“I got a call saying there was a car crash at your school which you were involved in, I may have panicked... It hit your truck?” Charlie asked, distracting her for the time being. 

“Yeah, just the back,” she told him, turning her focus to the truck, a simpler matter. 

Charlie made the calls to have the truck towed, as apparently the impact could have cracked the chassis. Bella had shuddered at the idea of the mechanic’s bill, but it seemed it had slipped Charlie’s mind to mention that the truck had been rebuilt by the son of a friend of his who was more than capable of checking it over. Which was good for her bank account but left her with the impression Charlie had been trying to hide the DIY nature of her truck. The van, which was undoubtably totalled was removed first to be sold for scrap. She and Edward had their statements taken and their lies seemed to be believed, but all she could focus on was getting Edward alone to question him properly. The principal graciously told them they could take the day off because of shock, which was when the issue of just how Bella would get home came up and she ceased her chance in a display of bravery and stupidity. 

“Could you give me a ride home, Edward?” Bella asked in front of everyone, doing her best impression of a damsel in distress to heap the pressure on, “I’m sure my dad would, but he’s got his hands full here.” 

“Okay,” he agreed tightly, jaw set. 

“Thank you, Edward,” Charlie said, looking equally grudging at his daughter being entrusted to some teenage boy. 

They walked across the lot to his car in stony silence and she thanked god the crowd of students had been corralled inside given their skills for staring and gossip. She had glared at the Volvo before, but had never gotten a good look, but up close she realised it was expensive, top of the range and new; she’d been no stranger to fancy cars, her old school had its fair share of rich kids, however it seemed unfair that the best-looking kids also had wealth, like fortune should be parcelled out more fairly. She was broken from her reverie when Edward joined her on the passenger side and opened the door for her, it was such a gentlemanly gesture and indicative of his hot and cold attitude. He joined her in the car and pulled out his space. 

“Thank you,” she said after a pregnant pause. 

“Your house is on my way home, it's alright,” he replied. 

“No... I mean for saving my life. I don’t know how you did it, but thank you,” she stumbled along, cheeks heating not meeting his eyes. 

“I couldn’t let the van hit you,” he replied sounding as though he didn’t choose to talk, but the sentiment was torn from him. 

“How did you do it?” she asked, the reality of a person, thing, able to survive a speeding van hit being sat in an enclosed space with her perhaps sinking in a little too late. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he sighed looking world weary and old beyond his years. 

“I’ve just seen the impossible, so I’d argue...” she tapered off when she realised she was already home, “Jesus Christ how fast were you going?! We’ve just seen what can happen when you speed for fuck sake! Look, you don’t want to tell me, that’s obvious. So, could you please just promise me that you’re actually alright and won’t bleed internally from injuries you are somehow numb to from like a secret meth habit?” 

“I promise I’m alright,” he responded after taking some time to collect himself, taken aback by her bluntness. 

“Well, umm, thank you,” she replied, now becoming aware that she was in a car with a stupidly pretty boy who had just saved her life, she shook her stupid head and cursed her teenage hormones, this was not the time. 

“Goodbye Bella,” he smiled awkwardly seeming to know her thought process. 

“You’re not going to disappear again, right?” she blurted. 

“No,” he smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. 

She finally got out of his car and he sped away as soon as the door shut at the same ridiculous speed, she had just chided him for, though she supposed a being able to walk away from a van crash without a scratch could probably handle a speeding car. Fucking hell, what was her life? She went inside and dumped her backpack in the hallway, fishing her phone from her pocket she saw she had a load of messages from her mom and people who’d added her on Facebook since her arrival. Principal among them were Jess, Mike and Angela and she was touched by their concern but was in no mood to answer. She was in even less of a mood to call her mother but knew from experience that the sooner she could intercept her panic the better. 

“Hey mom,” she said as her mom picked up on the second ring. 

“Bella! Oh my god Bella are you okay? Your dad said you were in a car accident,” she demanded frantically. 

“I’m fine mom. My truck got hit by a van that skidded on some ice. I wasn’t in it at the time, I just saw it happen, I’m okay, though,” she assured her mom, and okay with the phrasing she’d been given she understood why she’d be a little panicked. 

“You were by it?” she questioned. 

“I’d just gotten out, but it hit the back, so I was clear of it,” she explained more patiently. 

“Thank god, your dad said an ambulance was called,” replied Renee. 

“For the driver of the van,” she clarified. 

“Jesus Bella, you scared me. You promise you’re alright?” she demanded. 

“I’m fine, mom,” she assured, though with what she’d seen that day, who knew? 

She decided to indulge in a mountain of carbs, for the shock. Though it was only eleven o’clock and she’d eaten only a few hours earlier she cooked up a full box of kraft mac n cheese and settled in the living room to demolish it, a Storage Wars marathon as her side dish. She didn’t bother with the hoighty toity notions of ‘bowls’ and ‘not eating straight out of the saucepan’. She passed the day this way, pausing only briefly every few hours to text Charlie that she was still okay. She expected to be there until Charlie came home but was awoken from her tv daze by a knock at the door. When she opened it, she was met with a concerned trio of Angela, Jess and Mike obviously unhappy to have had their messages ignored after such an event. 

“So, we heard Tyler nearly hit you with his van,” Jess challenged, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, almost. Is he okay? They took him in an ambulance,” Bella asked, feeling bad she hadn’t asked before. 

“Hit his head pretty good, got like ten stitches”” Mike told her, bursting with the news. 

“But he’s fine,” Angela assured her, “well, fine enough to snapchat in the ambulance.” 

“Thank god, he was going real fast. You guys wanna come in?” she invited, feeling awkward keeping them on the porch. 

“If it's alright?” Angela checked. 

“Sure, dad’s gonna be at work for a while. Apparently, car crashes are a lot of paperwork,” she explained as she led them into the living room, noticing the mac n cheese crusted pan and fork on the coffee table too late. 

“Ooh, you got all gourmet,” Jess teased, settling onto the loveseat beside Angela. 

“Oh, only the finest,” she retorted, sitting on the sofa with Mike, who had eyed her dad’s comfy armchair but had evidently thought better of sitting in the chief’s spot. 

“So, tell us,” Jess instructed expectantly, “what happened? We’ve only heard gossip.” 

“Well, I just got out my truck and Edward came over-” she began before getting cut off by an excited Jess and jealous Mike. 

“As in Edward Cullen?” 

“What was Cullen doing there?” 

“Asking for Biology notes,” she made up quickly, “Tyler’s van skidded on some ice, he was going too fast anyway, and he hit the back of my truck. The ambulance came, took Tyler, we had to give police statements then the van and truck got towed and Principal Snow said I could go home for the day,” she explained simply as possible, emitting the obvious detail. 

“Your truck got towed?” Angela asked, concerned. 

“It looked alright, but it needs a mechanic to look it over before I can drive,” she explained glumly. 

“Things like a tank, it’ll be fine,” Mike reassured jovially. 

“You can carpool with us tomorrow,” Jess offered, smiling sympathetically, “do you think Tyler will lose his license?” 

“Thanks. God, I think my dad wants to take it away, but who knows?” Bella offered, not well versed in police protocol. 

“Wait, how’d you get home today? The cops were there for hours,” Mike asked. 

“Edward gave me a ride. My house is on his way home,” she explained, trying to downplay the fact. 

“Edward Cullen drove you home?!” Jess exclaimed, eyes alight with curiosity. 

“He got the day off too. Turns out nearly getting hit by a van is a great get out of jail free card,” she informed them, embarrassed by Mike’s presence for this line of inquiry. 

“Is that why you weren’t answering your messages all day?” Jess squealed. 

“No. I’ve been on the couch watching Storage Wars and eating mac n cheese, I just wasn’t in the mood for messaging,” she explained, face beet red. 

“He didn’t come in?” Jess asked disappointedly. 

“Why would he? I barely know the guy,” she lied through her teeth, in light of recent events she knew him better perhaps than his family did, whether she understood it or not. 

“Do you want my notes from today?” Angela asked, her usual kind self. 

“That’d be great. Can I see yours too, Jess?” she asked, eternally grateful for Angela’s tact. 

“Yeah... sure. You wanna take pictures?” she asked, thrown off kilter from the sudden topic change. 

When they’d sorted the sharing of notes they decided to settle down to watch a dumb action film, which is how Charlie found them when he finally made it back from work. It was hilarious to see her friends react to her dad coming home as though they’d been caught committing a crime with easy-going Mike even jumping to his feet at the presence of the police chief. 

“At ease, son. I’m not arresting you for anything” Charlie instructed with a wry chuckle, as Mike slunk back down, “I didn’t realise you had guests coming.” 

“They came to check I was alright,” Bella explained. 

“And are you? Alright?” he asked. 

“I’m fine, just a shock is all,” she waved off. God, the crash barely registered what with the whole Edward thing. 

“Good, that’s good,” he acknowledged, stood awkwardly in the doorway, “do you and your friends want dinner? I’m thinking pizza.” 

“We wouldn’t want to intrude...” Angela begins. 

“No intrusion, you came to check on Bella, I appreciate that. Just pick what you want and as long as it’s not pineapple I’ll get it,” he assured before leaving the room to change out of his uniform. 

“Are you sure it's alright?” Jess asked, still looking startled by the chief's sudden appearance. 

“Sure, unless your parents already expect you for dinner?” she asked. 

“Nah, we figured we’d eat in town later anyway. Pizza would be good,” Mike assured seeming more at ease after Charlie’s friendliness, well, friendly for him. 

In the end they ordered two pepperoni and one cheese pizzas from the only good pizza place in town, which was also suspiciously cheap, but Bella wasn’t gonna worry about that. Charlie settled in his armchair with a beer in his more comfortable house clothes with his feet up. Then came the issue of what to watch, Charlie tended towards sports and she’d never seen him actually watching a movie before. Bella took the reins and put on the first Indiana Jones, which the assembled seemed to approve of. They ate pizza, watched a cheesy, if slightly racist, 80s movie and chatted the evening away and for the first time since she’d started at Forks high she had an evening free of wondering about Edward Cullen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Weather’s cleared up,” Edward remarked lamely in the end, looking embarrassed the moment the words had left his lips. 
> 
> “You’re talking about the weather?” she asked in disbelief, god he was so awkward; something about that warmed her to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We meet sweet angel Jacob Black  
> Hopefully I'll have more spare time soon for more regular updates.

Bella wanted to fight her brain for being so unoriginal. That night she had been plagued by dreams of the crash, but she could never quite reach Edward, legs slowed down as though through molasses. No matter how much she thrashed and fought to reach him, the piteous figure bleeding and crying out for help. She woke drenched in sweat, fucking Forks. Her most dramatic moments in Pheonix had been worrying about a test. Maybe it was the weather, the lack of sunlight sending everyone a little insane. Or it was just her psyche interrupted by the move and change in home life had which her seeing things. But no, of one fact Bella was entirely certain, she had seen Edward Cullen walk away from a van crash without a scratch when he should not have been able to get up. The question wasn’t what had happened, but how. Maybe she didn’t want to know; except yes, she did, because for better or worse that was the type of person she was. 

Charlie stayed later than normal that morning, perhaps as a tangible way of doing his parenting thing. Apparently his friend’s son was more than happy to take a look at her truck and Charlie planned to see his old friend Billy whilst she made friends with her mechanic. Jess arrived earlier than Bella usually left with Angela already in the passenger seat and they seemed particularly jubilant for a Wednesday morning. The car was warm, and the speakers were blaring Doja Cat, which they graciously turned down as she got in the car. 

“Hey Bella, how are you doing today?” Angela asked smiling sympathetically as they pulled away. 

“Had some weird dreams, but I’m good. It’s weird you know. Like, it could’ve been an awful thing that happened, but by chance it didn’t. Fuckin weird,” she tried to explain. 

“Yeah, it’s wild. If you’d’ve been a few feet over...” Jess trailed off, “now, tell us everything about your ride with Edward!” 

“God,” Bella groaned, she understood the fascination with the mysterious, pretty Cullen, god she understood it, but that didn’t stop the blush creeping over her cheeks, “we mostly stayed quiet, like what do you say?” 

“So, there was nothing going on?” Jess side eyed her through the rear-view mirror, “all that adrenaline going...” 

“He’s just kind of an awkward guy,” Bella told them truthfully, “really fast driver. We were only in the car for like 5 minutes.” 

Their conversation thankfully ceased when they collected Mike and they instead began talking about some new Netflix show Bella hadn’t yet seen. The residents of Forks seemed especially skilled in staring and eyes followed her worse than on her first day. It seemed rumours had swirled of a dramatic near miss in which Tyler’s van had been joy riding and her truck had been rolled over from the crash. In the end she gave up on correcting people and settled for just nodding uncomfortably. Varner didn’t seem to have enough compassion in his robot skull to think that maybe Bella wasn’t on top form the day after a car crash and instead picked on her multiple times when her hand wasn’t raised. 

Tyler cornered her between Spanish and Trig to give an awkward, emotionally stunted apology. It was obviously well meant but through the fog of teenage embarrassment. She’d never actually spoken to Tyler before, but knew him through reputation, everybody did. He was a stereotypical popular teenage boy from the attitude to the immaculately styled meet me at McDonalds haircut. He seemed to feel bad about nearly killing her with his van and admitted he shouldn’t have been going so fast, but he was late and didn’t notice how icy it was. In the end, Bella began as emphatically assuring him that it was alright, he was forgiven, it was an accident. 

Dread pooled in her gut as the day wore on counting down to seeing him. So much so that she could barely focus on her friend’s renewed efforts to name her dog with the best suggestion by far coming from Lauren of Peanut Butter the pup. What really annoyed her was that the attention thrust upon her and Tyler didn’t touch Edward. Perhaps he was just less approachable, but it rankled her nonetheless. When the bell finally rang for class the only thing that kept her from ditching was Angela’s kind smile when she asked if she was ready to head to class. Mike seemed unaware of her preoccupation and provided them with chatter about whether Tyler would keep his license since he had a number of points for speeding already. Edward was already seated at the desk looking perfectly content, his cheeks were flushed pink and he held himself differently, more certain perhaps; still he sat at the far edge of the desk, as far from her as possible. As she approached, he made no indication he saw or heard her, but she tried not to read too much into it. 

“Hello Edward,” she greeted him, casually as she could manage as she set out her things for the lesson. 

“Hello Bella,” he replied his voice musical and honey smooth as it had been last time he’d tried to act normal. 

A long silence stretched between them; Bella desperately wanted to say something. To have a conversation with the person she’d shared such a unique, traumatic experience with, but nothing seemed right, or good enough. She was gratified though to see the feeling was mutual, which she observed as she stole a glance at him to see he was doing the same to her. They both looked away abruptly, embarrassed. Maybe if his face weren’t so annoyingly symmetrical and pretty, she’d find it easier. 

“Weather’s cleared up,” Edward remarked lamely in the end, looking embarrassed the moment the words had left his lips. 

“You’re talking about the weather?” she asked in disbelief, god he was so awkward; something about that warmed her to him. 

“How about our local sport’s team? God they’re passionate, if lacking in organisation and/or skill,” he replied after a moment with a wry smile and it actually got a little laugh from her, much to her own surprise. 

“Our local rivals are a bunch of cheats who care more about success than the game,” she played along, earning a crooked smile. 

“Are you alright? You had a big shock,” Edward asked, leaning towards her slightly, maybe subconciously. 

“I had a big shock?” She side eyed him hard, “I’m fine. My dad wanted me to pass on his thanks, for driving me home.” 

“I wasn’t shocked...” he muttered, “tell your dad it was my pleasure. I mean, it’d be pretty ungentlemanly to leave you stranded, what would my mother say?” 

Their conversation was cut off by the start of the lesson and Bella genuinely tried to focus, she really did, but she had made Edward Cullen smile and it was pretty amazing. Banner wasn’t phoning in this lesson and it thankfully meant she had to at least pretend to pay attention, though she found herself gazing over to Edward and caught his eye. This time, instead of turning away, he held her gaze and smiled, flushing red she’d turned away and try to act casual as her mind wandered over to what he could be. Although she felt a little guilty for ignoring her actual class this was science of a sort, one which would confirm the true nature of the world. She had witnessed him performing the impossible, so now there were if anything too many explanations. She took in his features, pale and beautiful, annoyingly so, but not supernaturally. Bella made a mental list of identifying features: very strong, or impervious to powerful forces, fast reaction times, very pretty. Her own thought was how much the description fitted Wonder Woman and she didn’t know what to do with that information. 

When the bell rung, Edward didn’t bolt away at the first chance, instead he lingered and they stood awkwardly as Bella gathered her things, smiling awkwardly, butterflies battering her belly. It was only when Mike announced his presence with a cough that Edward left. Mike was stoically quiet as they left the building and headed to gym, completely unlike his usual self. Perhaps buoyed by her good mood, Bella decided to break the silence for once, breaking the habit of a lifetime. 

“What do you guys usually do at the weekends?” she asked, aiming for jovial. 

“Uh...,” he seemed surprised at her actually making conversation, “we hang out at each other’s houses, go to the movies, go to Port Angeles. Why, you wanna hang out this weekend?” 

“Yeah, lets see what the others are doing,” she suggested, glad the set of his shoulders softened a little. 

“Cullen seemed friendly today,” he stated accusingly, as though this fact revealed some falsehood of hers; god he couldn’t know how close he was without understanding at all. 

“Was he?” she played dumb, probably too dumb. 

“Very friendly,” he persisted. 

“Oh, okay,” she nodded unconvincingly and hurried into the girl’s changing room, smooth as gravel. 

The parking lot cleared much faster than usual that day, what with the chief of police stood by his cruiser in the parking lot, gun in holster, moustache bristling with authority. Bella said goodbye to her friends and got in the car quickly, sick of all the attention of the day and just wanting them to leave and let the school get back to normal. Charlie, it seemed, was in no rush and leisurely left the parking lot, she was sure that the students of Forks high hadn’t even driven as well in their driver’s tests as they were being followed by their car. Charlie only started talking once they were clear of the lot on their way to the Black’s residence and not frightening the shit out of the student body. 

“How was school?” he asked, eyes on the road. 

“Fine. Everyone’s wondering if you’ll take Tyler’s license,” she asked, of only for something to tell her friends. 

“Haven’t decided yet,” he replied neutrally. 

“It was an accident, he apologised to me today, he felt really bad about it” she defended, knowing Tyler would’ve been crushed if she’d actually been hurt. 

“I’m sure he’d feel worse with a hefty driving suspension,” he murmured with a grin. 

The drive to the local reservation wasn’t a long one, though lengthened by Charlie’s slow driving. Bella had visited as a small child but had little to no memory of the route or the place. They pulled up to a small, tidy house with the skeleton of some cars and parts outside, the garage was open and a lanky teenager with long black hair was inside looking at the innards of her truck. He was a few years younger than Bella with an open friendly face. He came to greet them as they left the cruiser, wiping his greasy hands on a rag as he went, though there was still a splodge on his cheek. 

“Hey Charlie,” he grasped his hand in an enthusiastic shake and then called over his shoulder, “dad! Charlie’s here!” 

“Hi Jake, you remember Bella?” he introduced. 

“Pretty sure I was in diapers,” he laughed. 

Billy joined them outside, he was a few years older than Charlie and the family resemblance between he and Jake was unmistakable. He steered his wheelchair with certainty looking collected and ready for anything as he maneuvered towards them as he took in Bella with a steady gaze before turning greeting them both with a broad smile. 

“Bella, it’s been a long time,” he greeted, shaking her hand. 

“Hi,” she said with a shy wave, “thanks for looking at my truck,” she directed at Jake. 

“No problem, I was glad you took it off my hands. Dad wouldn’t let me start on anything else when we still had it,” he accepted with a casual laugh. 

It wasn’t long before Charlie and Billy were settled in the house, to watch sport and talk about whatever adults talked about, it seemed Billy was his oldest friend and his fishing buddy. This left the kids to make nice in the garage, it was set up neatly and absolutely full of car parts, tools and engineering knick knacks. Jake fished them out some warm sodas from a box and got settled again by her truck. Bella had never been particularly good at talking to strangers, but it seemed Jake hadn’t gotten that memo, determined instead to be chilled out and friendly. 

“Do you think she’ll make it, Doctor?” Bella joked, before immediately regretting it, but Jake just laughed easily. 

“She’ll live another day, it’s just commercial,” he responded with a wry smile, “I can fix the dent if you like, but it won’t do any damage if I don’t.” 

“Oh right, well you don’t need to worry about it. I’m just glad it’s not a write off,” she replied, not wanting to be too demanding of her free mechanic. 

“I’m already here might as well. The old beast could use as much help as it can get,” he told her, moving to the back of the truck and she joined him after a moment. 

“Hey! It’s a classic,” she chided him feeling a surge of protective affection for her lovely truck. 

“Being old and being good aren’t the same thing,” he pointed out grinning at her look of outrage as he got a hammer. 

“I love my truck, thank you very much,” she defended. 

“Bet you haven’t tried going over fifty,” he pointed out correctly. 

“Alright speedy racer, what do you drive?” she challenged, trying but failing to hide her smile. 

“I’m fixing up a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit,” he informed her proudly. 

“Are you old enough to drive?” Bella asked, annoyingly impressed. 

“Next year,” he told her. 

“You look older,” she remarked, and he squared his shoulders standing tall, happy with the compliment, “when did you get into cars?” 

“At school, I can’t sit still, they don’t like that in classes so when I can I’m in the machine shop,” he explained as he began to hammer out the dent. 

“And you’re already rebuilding cars? Impressive,” she praised. 

“How are you settling into Forks?” he asked, deflecting the compliment in an awkward teen way. 

“Let's see, I’ve been rained on, frozen and nearly hit by a van,” she joked, “but yeah, the people are nice.” 

“You miss sunny Pheonix?” he guessed. 

“I’m an Arizona dirtbag, what can I say?” That earned her a full belly laugh. 

“Yeah? Earnt your dirtbag stripes, huh?” he joked. 

“How are your sisters?” she asked as the laughter tapered off into a comfortable silence. 

“I’m surprised you remember them to be honest. Rachel’s married; she has a baby, cute little guy Mika. Lives on the other side of the reservation. Rebecca's studying at a community college across the state, she got a scholarship” he explained proudly, Bella was shocked, she was only a few years younger than Rachel, but it worked for some people she supposed, just not her parents. 

“Wow. They’re so... grown up,” she replied lamely. 

“Make you feel old?” he cracked wise. 

“Gonna get my Zimmer frame any day now,” she confirmed, then she spotted a poster on the wall of Captain America’s shield and she couldn’t help herself, “you like superheroes?” 

“Uh, yeah. To be fair you can’t find a movie without them at the moment,” he defended looking a little embarrassed. 

“Oh totally. Where do you think they’re from? Like, the concept. Do you think there’s anything in it?” she asked hoping he’d write it off as her being awkward and not actually insane. 

“Radioactive spiders?” he asked with a chuckle, “I mean, radiation probably does something to a person, but probably more like cancer. Real life super soldiers would be pretty cool I guess. Well, actually with the American military probably not...” 

“God, yeah,” she agreed, “you’d prefer a superman?” 

“Benevolent alien. I could get on board with that,” he laughed, “why, you wanna learn about comics?” 

“I liked Wonder Woman, I guess I just wanted to know more about it,” she explained, which wasn’t untrue and Jacob was a nice guy, still the fact she was deceiving him for information on Edward for theories weighed on her. 

“Oh, she’s cool. I’m more a marvel man myself, but I wasn’t kidding about the comics, I could show you them is you wanted...” he asked shyly. 

“That’d be fun,” she agreed genuinely, she’d not learnt anymore, but she’d find out some day. 

In the end they stayed for dinner at the Black’s, and she wondered just how many evenings Charlie had spent there before she had come back. Bella was glad he had someone he was obviously so close with; he’d get a good meal and friendly company. It warmed her, the thought of Charlie not being alone, liked she’d always imagined him from what her mom had told her. As they ate, they chatted and she found Billy had a dry, witty sense of humour which was easily missed at first, but as she settled, made welcome by their easy banter she came to notice how funny his little comments were gently ribbing his son and his oldest friend. It was when he made a crack about her dangerous driving that she knew she was fully integrated. Maybe sometimes a family was a dad, his daughter, his best fishing buddy and his son. They left late that night, Bella with her truck back with the promise to see more of one another.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not a good friend for you. You should stay away from me, be smart, stay away,” he told her emphatically looking worried and sad in a resigned way. 
> 
> “What if I’m not smart...” she challenged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for the events of the chapter is the tumblr user: bellasturtleneck

The week passed in an unremarkable blur, slowly but surely people began to forget the crash instead preferring to speculate about one of the seniors who’d gotten sloppy drunk at a party. Edward Cullen continued to drive her crazy by acting like an actual human being, socially stunted as he could be. They shared smiles in class and they even spoke about music they enjoyed, inconsequential though it was, she still went home and listened to the albums he’d mentioned. It’d be a nice romance budding were it not for his ‘little radioactive problem’ as she dubbed it. Not that she credited that as an actual theory, well, not anymore. She’d spent a long afternoon researching the ins and outs of the effects of radiation and now knew better. That’s not to say that all she did was think about Edward Cullen, just rather a lot. 

She slept in on Saturday after a night blessedly free of bad dreams and uninterrupted sleep. Perhaps this was her Forks initiation, sleeping through the incessant wind and rain. She dressed with care that morning, well her version of it, donning her forest green bowling shirt with all the novelty piping and logos to match; in a better mood than she’d been for a long while. Jess and Lauren had decided that with such a heavy week they were in need of a fun weekend, which in Forks apparently meant driving to the next town over to see a movie and eat some of the greasiest/best diner food in the area. Bella had jumped at the chance to actually get out and do something. 

She joined Charlie in the kitchen where he was sat in his usual spot, newspaper in hand and piping black coffee sat by his empty plate, radio on softly playing some 80s station. She made herself some toast and poured a coffee as they stood in companionable silence. Mornings in Pheonix had been chaotic, her mom was terrible at alarms and Phil had never had a clean uniform when he needed one. Bella sat across from Charlie at the table and dug into her jelly on toast, still feeling fairly sub-vocal. 

“Any plans for today?” Charlie asked after a while, setting his newspaper down. 

“Uh yeah, my friends and I are going to see a movie then get dinner,” it then occurred to her they’d never spoken about a curfew, “if that’s alright.” 

“Sure, what are you seeing?” he asked mildly. 

“Some dumb horror movie,” she told him, not remembering the title. 

“Is Edward Cullen going?” he asked after a pause, and Bella very nearly choked on her coffee. 

“Uh, no. He isn’t really a friend, we’re just lab partners,” she explained, knowing her face was betraying her. 

“Uh huh?” he asked raising a cop eyebrow. 

“Yeah, I’m going with Jess, Angela, Mike, Lee and Lauren,” she listed off trying in vain to distract him. 

“Are you driving?” he asked after evidently running numbers in his head. 

“No, Lauren’s giving me a ride since I don’t know where it is,” she told him. She was actually kinda nervous about it since she didn’t know her very well. 

“Good, that’s good,” he said vaguely. 

“What are you up to today?” she asked feeling a little bad she wouldn’t be at home. 

“Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, gonna clean the cruiser,” he listed off. 

“Do you need any help?” Bella asked guiltily. 

“Nah, don’t worry, it’s a chore day. Every weekend can’t be fishing,” he brushed off good-naturedly, before rubbing at his neck awkwardly, “I know we haven’t talked about allowance or anything, but here,” he got his wallet off the counter and slipped her two twenties. 

“Thanks dad,” she blinked surprised, she reflexively wanted to refuse it feeling bad, but she knew Charlie enjoyed little parental things like that. 

In the end Bella did end up helping with chores, she stealthily loaded the washer and did the dishes whilst Charlie was out washing his car and she suspected her truck. When he saw he just shook his head and chuckled muttering something about being mother-henned. The time came and went for Lauren to pick her up and she debated whether to text the number she’d given her the day before, but instead waited in the lounge with a good view of the window. Eventually she pulled up and Bella shouted her goodbyes and hurried out, climbing into the backseat as Lee was sat shotgun. 

“Hey Bella,” Lee welcomed. 

“Hey guys,” she offered back not knowing whether to reference the lateness before it was taken out of her hands. 

“Sorry we’re late,” Lauren said as she pulled away, “we got held up convincing Lee’s mom to let him out.” 

“Is she strict?” Bella asked, feeling better since Lauren was usually the least friendly to her. 

“Kinda, but somebody,” she shot a death glare at Lee, “got caught playing x box at 2 am.” 

“Ooh, rough,” Bella made sympathetic noises. 

“I got it taken for a week!” he bemoaned, “but she let me come out today so the new girl would feel welcomed.” 

“That’s nice of her,” she replied surprised. 

“Lauren’s great at getting her own way, you mean,” he joked back. 

“Well, it’s true,” Lauren defended in a fake huff, “Bella’s second weekend at Forks. And she nearly got hit by a van.” 

“When you say it like that...” Bella laughed, sitting back for the ride as Lee got the aux sorted, Lauren warning of the perilous consequences were he to choose a bad playlist. 

The journey was short, and the others were already outside the movie theatre, sheltering in Jess’ car. They all dashed through the rain to the theatre, it was tiny with only one screen, but it was nice enough and clearly well used. It was full of people since it was a Saturday, but they made it in before the ads were over. They managed to get a row of seats getting Lauren next to Mike, which would keep her in a good mood and hopefully direct Mike’s attention from Bella. Low as her expectations for the movie were, they plummeted as the movie opened with narration in a bad vaguely eastern European accent. 

The movie was as you’d expect, violence and sex in equal measure, plot holes all over the place. Still, it was fun, they laughed a lot at the more ludicrous melodrama of the love triangle. Halfway through the movie, she turned to make a comment to Jess about something happening on screen when she stopped, seeing Jess and Angela holding hands on the armrest in the dark. It wasn’t for comfort at something scary in the film, but a private moment and Bella turned away quickly, not wanting to intrude. Upon reflection it did make a lot of sense, they were very close, had never spoken about boys they liked and, well, she supposed that was enough, Bella knew she was the one that dressed the most like a stereotypical lesbian of the group. 

It was dark when they left the theatre, with everyone in high spirits, Lee and Mike were chatting loudly about all the ways the lead antagonist could’ve been killed, with particular focus on whether or not a toothpick counted as a wooden stake. They weren’t the only teenagers to walk from the movie to the diner across the street. It was very retro themed, gaudy to the extreme with bright red leatherette booths and even a jukebox. They were seated in one of said booths by a grumpy waitress in a 50s uniform and handed menus. Everything on the menu looked both unhealthy and delicious and Bella was super glad she’d not gotten popcorn. 

“You know who Cassius looked like?” Mike pointed out, “the Cullens.” 

“That’s not nice,” Angela chided. 

“It’s fair, they’re all pale and mysterious,” he made a vague mysterious gesture. 

And, huh, watching the movie she hadn’t thought of that, but at a glance it did add up. Pale faces, pretty, strong, fast. But Bella had definitely seen Edward in sunlight before and it was just... weird. She shelved that obsession for when she was at home and instead focussed on the conversation as Angela, Mike and Lee took turn assigning movie characters to one another, while Lauren and Jess paid no attention having a completely separate conversation. 

“If a toothpick counts as a stake, could a vampire pierce their ears with it?” Bella cut into the conversation wanting distraction. 

“It would kill them!” Lee exclaimed. 

“No, the stake needs to go through the heart,” Bella rebutted. 

“You need a stake to kill them, but would a needle not work for a piercing?” Angela wondered. 

“God, could a vampire heal itself?” Bella asked in return, “like you pierce their ear, and put the earring in and it just pops out after a while.” 

“Or, it gets imbedded in,” Mike suggested, “like people who get shot and the bone grows around the bullet.” 

“So, you’d have to really like the earring,” Angela concluded. 

Their pontification was interrupted by the grumpy waitress and they set about enjoying the best greasy diner food Bella had ever had, they shared sundaes and she didn’t end up getting home until 10 o’clock. Charlie was in the living room watching some basketball game with a beer in hand, he didn’t get up when she came in and she toed off her boots and went in to join him. He’d obviously been there some hours and a bit of guilt curled in her gut. 

“Hey Bells, you have a nice time?” He greeted her. 

“Yeah dad, the movie sucked, but it was fun,” she replied her mind wandering back to where it had been wanting to go all evening. 

“Good, that’s good,” he replied thankfully not catching her preoccupation. 

“Right, I’m gonna head to bed,” she excused herself as she walked away. 

“Good night Bells.” 

Once safely ensconced in her room sat in bed wrapped in blankets with her laptop on her lap, only her lamps as light she made her deep dive into vampirism. She felt vaguely unhinged at her actions but ploughed ahead anyway. The key qualities she found were blood drinking, pale, vulnerable to sunlight, fangs, no reflection and could be supernaturally beautiful. She had to admit there were some similarities to Edward, but nothing concrete and she had no proof. Not that she’d show it to anyone else, but something to show to herself when in doubt. She was a scientist! Well, not really in the conventional sense, but when dealing with the forces of the supernatural Bella figured she could go pretty DIY. She needed some experiments to figure out if Edward was in fact a vampire. It never occurred to her even as she sat on the new information overnight that it was perhaps not the best idea to try and provoke a vampire into exposing their existence. She just desperately wanted to understand. 

Bella rose early on Sunday too restless to stay in bed any longer and rather than starting on the pile of homework she had waiting, instead got in her truck with no breakfast and drove to the bookstore in town. Sure, it wasn’t a logical move, but it was happening. When she arrived, she was the only customer there and she beelined to the classics section glad that it at least wasn’t a difficult book to get her hands on. Bella got home as Charlie was coming downstairs and he crooked an eyebrow at her but took the explanation of needing a book for her homework without question. They breakfasted together before she actually attended to her neglected pile of homework. Charlie joined her in the living room, and they spent the day in companionable silence coexisting in the same space. Though she did her homework, her mind was elsewhere, in a realm of vampires, witches and werewolves and how she was going to bring this up to the vampire in question. 

That night she dreamt of coffins, a dark room lit by candlelight and Edward Cullen. He was different in the dream, darker, more unhinged, like he had been on that first day, but when he opened his mouth, he had fangs. And sure, it was a kinda sexy dream and no she wouldn’t elaborate on that or what it said about her psyche. She was glad to have the peaceful refuge of her truck back for her short journey to school and she drove slower than usual that day to enjoy her solitude. Given how much she’d been thinking about finding proof one way or the other of Edward being a vampire she had very little to show for it; short of pricking her finger in front of him, which, if he were a vampire wouldn’t be a great idea. Bella pushed the thought of what exactly she’d thought she was going to do with a copy of Dracula to the back of her mind as she met her friends by homeroom, perhaps her subconscious would get an idea, lesser the workload on her conscious mind. 

That day's conversation was provided amply by the weekend’s excursion and Bella was able to float through the day putting little effort into conversations, she listened, her replies just weren’t particularly insightful. Her mind just couldn’t help wandering to the existence of the supernatural that she was now aware of. That’s what they seemed to know her as, a quiet, thoughtful person who was friendly enough and fit into their group. Their unwavering acceptance of her, non-communicative as she often was, warmed her. 

By the time of Biology, she was oddly calm, having no energy to worry anymore over what to do with her theory. Edward was already sat at their desk when she entered the classroom and she gave him her usual shy smile, which he returned. As she reached into her backpack to get her books, she felt the edge of her copy of Dracula and acted without thinking. Bella took out the book, set it on the table and slid it over to him slowly and deliberately. She turned and looked him in the eye, his face was a mask of shock and disbelief, his mouth hung open dumbly. This was it, now or never, Bella looked him dead in the eye, looked down at Dracula and then met his eye again and gave a little nod. He looked as though he were about to vomit, if vampires could indeed vomit and gripped the edge of the desk tight enough to make his knuckles stand out. It may not have been the right place to deliver such a revelation. On another impulse she reached out and laid her hand on his ice cold one and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. 

He wouldn’t meet her eye for the rest of the class and didn’t go through the motions of making any notes. Bella was oddly focussed, like now she had her answer her mind was finally clear, and she could focus. She’d had the presence of mind to take the copy of Dracula from the table and slip it in her bag since it would probably gain unwanted attention eventually. Banner must have seen Edward’s inattention and called on him when his hand wasn’t raised, since their desk was towards the back, she was able to mutter the correct answer of ‘the crebbs cycle’ to him unnoticed. She could have never imagined even a few weeks ago that such a pivotal moment of her life would happen in the Biology lab. 

When the bell rang, she stood in Edward’s path packing her things slowly and told Mike that she’d meet him in gym since she’d forgotten her clothes in her locker. Mike offered to accompany her for the walk, but he shrugged him off, but all the same he looked suspiciously between Edward and Bella before heading out. She stuck to Edward’s side as he walked out of class, he was still not acknowledging her existence, but had he wanted to leave her company he would have by now manners be damned. He turned to her abruptly when it became clear she wasn’t planning on leaving him be. 

“I’m not a good friend for you. You should stay away from me, be smart, stay away,” he told her emphatically looking worried and sad in a resigned way. 

“What if I’m not smart...” she challenged. 

“You are, otherwise, you wouldn’t have figured it out,” he pointed out. 

“We need to talk Edward, I have questions,” she implored him. 

“Of course, you do,” he smiled ruefully and shook his head fondly. 

“Please, just humour me,” she asked him, reaching out and placing a hand on his arm. 

“You have class,” he pointed out without much conviction. 

“So do you,” she retorted. 

“I mean it, Bella. You should stay away from me,” he looked at war with himself. 

“What if I don’t want to?” 

“That’s what I was worried you’d say,” he sighed to his world-weary bones, 

“If that’s what you think, why don’t you stay away?” she asked. 

“I’m too much of a selfish, self-serving creature to do that, to do the decent thing,” he spat out in self-hatred. 

“You saved my life once and I kept your secret, I say that makes us even. You can talk to me,” she implored. 

“Alright.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, there’s that, the strength of twenty men is how Stoker described it, but that was pretty generous to the strength of men,” he explained. 
> 
> “Like horsepower,” she commented without thinking. 
> 
> “What?” he asked bemused. 
> 
> “A horse can’t run at one horsepower. It’s like that but... manpower? Your strength is 20 manpower using an equivalent system?” she thought aloud. 
> 
> “You’re really weird...” he assessed but not as an insult. 
> 
> “Says the vampire,” she shot back, “wait, can you turn into a bat?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Bella and Edward time y'all

They left Edward’s car in the lot so his siblings could drive home in it, opting instead for the truck, regardless of how much Edward bemoaned how slow it was. They headed to the Swan residence since her dad wouldn’t be home until evening giving them several hours to have this conversation. Bella saw a completely new Edward in the journey, not angry, not fake friendly, not shyly nice, no, he looked terrified. It was ironic really, since of the occupants of the car only one of them needed to drink blood to survive and it sure wasn’t Bella. 

When they reached her house, Bella hesitated as to where to settle down, convention told her to sit in the living room, but the teenage girl inside her decided her bedroom was obviously the sensible location. It seemed safer somehow, cosier and if her dad came home unexpectedly it’d give Edward time to hide. Her dad would probably be lenient about her ditching gym, but him catching her ditching to spend time alone with Edward was a whole other matter. Edward followed her silently to her room, though when she got inside and sat on her bed, gesturing for him to join her he did raise his eyebrows. 

“Or you could sit on the desk chair,” she suggested, suppressing a smirk at his awkwardness at being in a teenage girl’s room. 

“You had questions,” he prompted, sitting on the other end of the bed gingerly. 

“You’re a vampire.” 

“That isn’t a question,” he dodged in a last ditched attempt. 

“I could say it with an upward inflection if you’d like,” she replied easily causing a long sigh. 

“Yes, I am,” he finally confirmed vocally, and she couldn’t help smiling smugly, “you’re far too happy for someone that invited a monster into their home,” he scolded her, resignedly disappointed. 

“That’s real? You need an invitation?” she asked, ignoring the whole monster comment, “but I didn’t invite you?” 

“Non-verbal invitations count. I’m welcome in your home so I could come in,” he explained. 

“Huh, cool,” she commented. 

“Of course, you’d think that was cool,” he responded with exasperated fondness. 

“That is cool,” she insisted, “but don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you’re cool, you're a fucking nerd.” 

“So, you brought me to your house to ask me questions and be mean to me?” he crooked an eyebrow with a faint smile. 

“That’s the Swan special. Now tell me everything,” she ordered, settling into a more comfortable sitting position. 

“The Big Bang, God, the Fibonacci sequence, 3.1415926-” he began before he was cut off. 

“Don’t tell me every decimal of pie. I was obviously referring to your vampirism. Or would you like to hear what I know?” she asked, chastising him, though it was the sort of sarcastic answer she normally enjoyed. 

“Please, share your wisdom,” he acquiesced. 

“Well, you obviously don’t get killed by sunlight...” she started. 

“And I thought you’d read the book,” he tutted. 

“What?” 

“Dracula. It’s actually the most truthful portrayal of vampires. And if you had read it you would know that sunlight doesn’t kill us, it just weakens our powers,” he revealed, dropping several bombs at once. 

“Dracula is accurate?” she asked unsure if he was joking, but then again, she was speaking to a vampire. 

“Bram Stoker is a vampire,” he said casually. 

“You mean was?” she asked in disbelief. 

“You don’t understand what a vampire is do you?” he laughed. 

“And writing a book about vampires was a good move for keeping his secret?” 

“Yes, actually. See someone acting like Dracula, they couldn’t be a vampire, that’d be far too obvious. It’s true he embellished certain parts for secrecy, but it’s based on him,” he explained. 

“Huh,” she sat for a long time digesting that particular bit of information, “wait, you said sunlight weakens your powers. What are your powers? Besides getting hit by vans?” 

“Well, there’s that, the strength of twenty men is how Stoker described it, but that was pretty generous to the strength of men,” he explained. 

“Like horsepower,” she commented without thinking. 

“What?” he asked bemused. 

“A horse can’t run at one horsepower. It’s like that but... manpower? Your strength is 20 manpower using an equivalent system?” she thought aloud. 

“You’re really weird...” he assessed but not as an insult. 

“Says the vampire,” she shot back, “wait, can you turn into a bat?” 

“I can’t, but many can. I’m not powerful enough,” he explained in earnest and she wanted to not believe him, to think he was just making fun of her, but every sense she had was telling her he wasn’t. 

“And a dog?” she prompted, remembering something about Dracula travelling through England as a dog. 

“Some of them can,” he replied. 

“Levitation?” she continued, and he obliged her by crossing his legs and floating a little way above the bed. 

“What the fuck?” she exclaimed, and he smiled as he came back down to the bed, happy to get a sensible reaction from her at last. 

“Finally, the proper reaction. Will you now run away screaming like you should?” he asked. 

“This is my house, I’m not running anywhere,” she objected coming back to herself. 

“Just when you started to react properly,” he shook his head in disapproval. 

“And the telepathic stuff?” she continued. 

“Again, it's based on ability and some vampires have a natural aptitude to it,” he explained. 

“So, you’re just, what? Not great at being a vampire,” she concluded. 

“You could say that,” he smiled. 

“Wait, so how old are you?” she finally thought to ask. 

“Seventeen.” 

“How long have you been seventeen?” she pressed. 

“A while.” 

“Ooh cryptic, nice,” she complimented sarcastically, “when were you born?” 

“1901,” he finally answered, “when I was turned, I was dying in an overcrowded hospital of influenza. My mother and father and all my siblings had died. I was completely alone in the world. Carlisle took pity on me and saved me from my fate.” 

“Carlisle AKA Dr Cullen, the medical doctor is a vampire?!” she demanded in disbelief and incredibly impressed. 

“Yes,” he confirmed simply, giving her time to wrap her head around the concept. 

“And you’re over a hundred years old?” she resumed her questions after a minute. 

“I am. I turn 103 in June,” he told her. 

“And you don’t age?” she asked rather dumbly. 

“No, not in a human way, vampire age affects us though. Older vampires are often more powerful, since they’ve had longer to master their abilities. I’m in my vampire adolescence, it lasts a while,” he explained. 

“Wait, why are you in high school?” it occurred to her that they must be there by choice which was unfathomable to her. 

“After we were transformed, it took a long time for us to learn control. We’d only really seen one another, but since we wanted to live with the humans again, apparently we needed ‘socialising’,” Edward told her and she realised they had somehow migrated closer to one another on the bed, facing each other. 

“So what, other vampires just really go for the whole creature of the night thing?” that actually got her a laugh. 

“You could say that,” he replied, looking as though he expected her to question him further, “well.” 

“What?” 

“Aren’t you going to ask the most basic question?” he asked haughtily, pulling back from where they’d gotten so close on the bed. 

“Uh...” 

“What do we eat, Bella?” he demanded, standing up in a huff and going to stand by the window, looking out of it meladramatically. 

“Blood,” she replied simply, feeling as though she had missed something big. 

“Yes, blood! Are where do we get the blood?” he questioned, seeming confused and frustrated by her lack of reaction. 

“People, maybe some animals,” she answered him, still confused as to what she was missing. 

“And what, you wouldn’t mind that? That we’d have to kill people to live!?” he shouted. 

“People can give blood without dying,” she responded, now wondering if he was the one being stupid, “10 pints of blood in the average person, they can lose a pint no problems so what, that’s ten people to completely refill your body of blood. Also, you’re telepathic, you’d could easily find out who the rapists, murderers and child molesters were then you wouldn’t need to restrain yourself.” 

It was at then that Edward began to pace her room, head in his hands, muttering to himself as he went. Bella stayed sat on the bed, sensing he needed some time to adjust to a human knowing his secret. 

“Are you real?” he asked after quite some time, looking at her in complete bafflement. 

“I could well ask that of you, Ed,” she pointed out, trying to ease the tension a little. 

“I just told you I live off of human blood and you aren’t even scared. I can hear your heartbeat; it isn’t even raised!” 

“Well, I told you that, actually,” she corrected. 

“You’re not worried I’m going to drink your blood and kill you?” he asked emphatically, walking towards her. 

“Nope,” she replied, popping the P. 

“How? I’m a predator, you should be feeling some modicum of primal fear at this information!” 

“Well, I don’t. It’s not like this is new information for me. I’ve had like two days to get used to the idea,” she explained. 

“Now, I know you aren’t stupid, but are you dumb?” He asked, stunned. 

“Humans eat meat, and they don’t even need it to survive. You drink blood, whatever system you have is because you need it to live. This isn’t the big ethical quandary you think it is,” she told him, hoping he’d finally understand where she was coming from. 

“We drink animal blood,” he finally told her, at the end of his tether. 

“Oh. So, the whole human blood thing doesn’t ever matter then,” she asked, confused. 

“You are the most bizarre creature I’ve ever met in both my lives,” he told her earnestly after a long sigh, coming to sit next to her. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she smiled at him. 

“Of course you do,” he replied shaking his head, but he was smiling his beautiful, crooked smile and Bella became acutely aware of how close they were to each other. 

“I must say,” she began, leaning closer to him, “I’m a bit disappointed.” 

“You are?” he asked, drawing back abruptly. 

“Yeah, for a while I thought you were like Wonder Woman,” she told him softly. 

“Not Superman?” he asked, utterly shocked. 

“No. Wonder Woman’s prettier,” she teased. 

“You think I’m pretty?” Edward asked shyly. 

“The prettiest,” she told him solemnly. 

When Edward looked at her it was not with the face of someone who had lived over a hundred years, but a shy, nervous 17-year-old who was alone with his crush. He reached out a pale hand and tucked a stand of Bella’s hair behind her ear, his hand moving down to cup her jaw. Despite his ice-cold hand, the skin he touched burned, and she leant in, unconsciously holding her breath. The cold press of his lips to hers though expected was still a shock, just not one she minded. Bella sat up in bed bringing herself closer to Edward, sliding a hand round the back of his neck, tangling it in his hair. Edward leant in closer, the kiss growing more heated, though lacking in any kind of finesse. Then suddenly the kiss was over. Bella opened her eyes in shock finding Edward stood stock still at the opposite end of the room. 

“Edward?” she asked bewildered, caught between wondering why he left and how he’d gotten over there so fast. 

“I- I need a moment,” he told her through clenched teeth. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, wanting to go to him, but thinking better of it. 

“I didn’t tell you everything,” he began after a minute, “it's true, we only feed from the blood of animals, but you, your blood is like a drug to me, a temptation like no other. From the first time I met you.” 

“That’s why you said you’re dangerous?” she asked. 

“I am dangerous, Bella.” 

“But you came here, what, because you wanted my blood?” she thought out loud. 

“It’s worse. I should stay away, but I can’t, because of you, not your blood,” he admitted. 

“Then don’t,” she said, the idea of him going away being unbearable to her. 

“It isn’t my decision anymore, I’m too weak,” he told her, face full of self-hatred. 

“You saved my life,” she reminded. 

“I couldn’t hurt you now, I couldn’t stand it. I feed more often, I’m more careful,” he assured her, still looking torn, like he’d love to leave. 

“It’s alright, it’s okay,” she reassured him. 

She decided to chance it and walk towards him and he didn’t immediately run, which was a good sign she figured. Not wanting to push her luck she decided to give this dramatic scene a change of setting and suggested they went downstairs. Downstairs was safe, the connotations were different. Fresh air and all that. 

“I feel bad for not offering you something,” she remarked as she got herself a glass of water, “wait, what does happen when you eat something?” 

“It isn’t very pleasant,” he laughed, “I vomit the entire contents of my stomach, which is mainly blood.” 

“Oof. Let me guess, you only make that mistake once?” she remarked, leading them to the living room where Edward consciously sat on a different couch. “So, what’s your favourite book?” she asked as a way to distract him. 

They sat talking about inconsequential things getting to know one another and debating the finer points of both Jane Eyre and Star Wars for an hour before Bella realised that it had gotten dark outside, and her dad would be coming home soon. As she sat up, she realised she’d been in the same position, leant towards Edward for a straight hour and her back made its complaint known. Then she remembered that she’d driven them to her house and Edward didn’t have a car to get home. 

“Do you need a ride home?” she asked, not wanting him to go, but knowing he should. 

“I can make my own way home,” he assured her, standing. 

“I don’t mind, you don’t have your car...” 

“I don’t need a car to get around,” he told her and honest to god winked. 

“Yeah? Like to run feral in the forest, are you fast?” she asked, desperate to know more despite all the questions she’d asked so far. 

“Very fast,” he smiled, all teeth. 

Bella showed him to the door, and before he left Edward leant in and kissed her goodbye for just the briefest second before he was gone faster than she could see, leaving her shocked and breathless. She felt a little crazed as she just stood there smiling and touching her mouth where his lips had just been. Eventually she snapped out of it and went inside and fetched her backpack from the hallway and settled into the living room with her homework around her. It wasn’t easy to focus after the day of revelations she’d had, not to mention kissing the boy she’d been crushing on since she’d gotten here. Little pieces of their weeks together began to make sense with what she now knew. Especially why he’d been so horrible to her that first day. Charlie returned around half six and found her stretched out on the couch intently reading the Canterbury Tales for English. He toed off his boots, took off his jacket and locked his service weapon in the safe under the hallway table. 

“Hey Bells,” he greeted, joining her in the living room. 

“Hi dad,” she replied in what she hoped was a casual voice. 

“Good day?” he asked, ah, so not casual enough, or perhaps too casual. 

“I ditched gym,” she blurted out without thinking, at least that seemed to answer why she was in that state. 

“Uh huh?” he asked with his cop face on. 

“I fell behind on some homework going out on Saturday, so I cut class to get it done,” she ‘admitted’. 

“Well, thank you for being honest with me. If you want to go out with friends, I’ll expect you to keep on top of your homework. And I don’t want to hear about you skipping any more classed. As this is a first offence, we’ll say no more about it,” he told her matter of factly and it struck her that she had a pretty cool dad. 

“I know dad, I won’t,” she told him looking down apologetically. 

“Okay, well I’ll start dinner,” he told her before going to his room and changing. 

That’s when Bella checked her phone for the first time since lunch and saw she had a series of messages. Mikes were on the blunter side asking where she’d disappeared to and why she’d ditched class. Jess wanted to know the details and wondered if she was sick and Angela asked if she was okay and if she wanted to chat about anything. The messages were appreciated, if a little overbearing and she replied to each of them whilst she waited for dinner. As they ate, Charlie told her about what was going on at work and asked after her schoolwork. 

When she was finally in bed, she could reflect on the course of the day properly. That’s when it occurred to her that if Edward and Dr Cullen were vampires and Edward had been talking in plural it seemed the whole family were vampires. With how Edward acted about a human knowing his secret it seemed that it was a first for him. There was something about him trusting her with the details of his secret that touched her. Well, not that he had a choice once he’d reacted the way he did. It seemed too weird to believe that the fabric of her world had changed so much in a day. She had known before, in her gut she’d known it was true, but knowing something theoretically and seeing it was a different thing entirely.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was also aware that with his supernatural abilities he could probably drive better than her in his sleep and she didn’t even know if he could sleep! 
> 
> “I’m going to meet your parents,” Bella stated dumbly once they were on an easy straight stretch of road. 
> 
> “I’m sorry it's under these circumstances,” he apologised, his face looking all tormented again. 
> 
> “If I’d have known I might have worn something different,” she commented, thoughts on her glaringly kitsch Kate Bush T-shirt under a clashing plaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet the Robinsons, but its Meet the Cullens!  
> Thanks for your lovely comments, they make me excited to write!

Bella slept weirdly soundly for someone who had found out for sure that literal vampires walked the earth the day before. It was exciting if anything, the world was far more mystical and varied than she could have ever imagined. Yet, there was still so much more to learn even after the mass questioning session she’d subjected Edward to the day before. He’d actually been a really good sport about the whole thing, that was when he wasn’t having a loaded angst sesh. It struck her that she didn’t know where to go from there. The etiquette for how to interact with the boy who’d revealed the existence of vampires and then kissed you was somewhat obscure. In the end she just decided to proceed as normal and see what the day brought, including how Edward acted around her. She just hoped he wouldn’t disappear again. 

When she got to homeroom Mike, Jess and Angela were already there having a discussion about how many calories there was in petrol which cut off abruptly when she approached. 

“Where’d you disappear to yesterday?” Mike demanded looking slightly betrayed. 

“I told you in my text, ditching is healthy. I was already gonna be late, so I just thought screw it and went home early,” she explained nonchalantly. 

“But what about your legendary gym grade, what will you do now?” Jess worried sarcastically. 

“Yeah, they won’t let me onto the Olympic volleyball team now. What will I do?” Bella played along. 

“What if coach says something?” Angela asked. 

“Just say you had ‘women’s problems’, always works for me,” Jess advised. 

“Thanks,” she replied, “you do know inedible things don’t have calories?” 

“For humans, yeah. But if you were to convert the energy given to the car from the petrol what would it be in calories?” Angela explained. 

Their conversation continued on a meandering illegible route throughout homeroom and the normalcy of the day lulled her into a false sense of security that things would in fact be normal. This was true through the day, that was until lunch. Her gaze went reflexively to the Cullen table and it was one person short. One socially awkward ginger to be precise and Bella’s stomach fell. The healthy appetite she’d previously had disappeared, and she only grabbed a soda from the cafeteria. She was ready to sit down and wallow when Jess caught her attention. 

“Edward Cullens staring at you,” Jess whisper shouted. 

Bella’s head snapped up; the Cullen table was still down a number, but he was sat alone at another table in the middle of the cafeteria. He was indeed looking at her and when they made eye contact Bella had to supress a smile. She attempted to school her expression into something neutral, but she was pretty sure the girls knew something was up, whereas Mike just looked jealous at his attentions and Lee looked confused. 

“I wonder why he’s sitting alone today,” Lauren remarked when Bella made no comment. 

Edward continued to look over and when they next made eye contact, he gestured for Bella to join him. 

“Does he mean you?” Jessica asked in a tone of surprise that Bella chose not to be insulted by. 

“I’ll see what he wants,” she told them picking up her soda and backpack and walking over, she didn’t feel great about just ditching her friends, but she’d make it up to them later somehow. 

“I thought you could have lunch with me today,” Edward said by way of a greeting. 

“Ooh so we’re being seen together in the public eye,” she remarked, sitting down. 

“I figured out that as long as I’m going to hell I might as well have a good time,” he replied in a rush. 

“Going to hell?” she crooked an eyebrow. 

“My family don’t exactly approve of me letting the secret out and now this drawing more attention to myself,” he explained. 

“At least it was out of incompetence and not malice,” she pointed out before something occurred to her, “wait, y’all have super senses, right? So, they can hear our conversation right now.” 

“Yes, though we usually try to tune out conversations,” he replied, embarrassed. 

“Something tells me they aren’t tuning out ours,” she assessed, “they know I’m not gonna tell anyone, right?” 

“I have told them that, yes. If it makes you feel better, it isn’t all of them. Alice and Emmett are on your side, so is Esme. Emmett loved your trick with the book,” he told her the last bit with a smile. 

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know I was going to do it until I did it,” she admitted. 

“I don’t think that makes it better,” he replied and continued after a moment, “they’re also worried about my control.” 

“Ah, well I think you’re too awkward to do anything sinister in this crowded room,” she reassured him trying to lighten the mood that had overcome him. 

“You have such faith in me,” he responded sarcastically. 

“I do,” she told him softly, cutting out the joking for once. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” he angsted back. 

“God, are vampires just contractually obligated to be dramatic?” she complained, but stopped when she saw Edward was instead looking over her shoulder, “what?” 

“Your boyfriend thinks I’m being mean to you,” he commented, finally looking away. 

“Boyfriend?” she raised her eyebrow in disbelief. 

“Newton,” he responded, watching her for a response. 

“Mike? Jesus, Edward. Angela’s more of my boyfriend than Mike,” she corrected his petty jealousy. 

“None of my business,” he responded trying to seem nonchalant. 

“You usually kiss girls with boyfriends?” she questioned, her first time referencing the afternoon before. 

Edward winced, but spoke before Bella could draw the wrong conclusions, “I had managed to keep that from my family.” 

“Oh shit. I’m sorry, I’m not used to people being able to hear everything I’m saying,” she apologised. 

“They’d have figured it out eventually,” he brushed it off. 

“Still not fun to have your siblings eavesdropping on a private conversation,” she pointed out with an obvious cough. 

“You’re taunting a group of vampires; you think that’s a good idea?” he asked. 

“Someone has to. Or you’ll get a big head,” she asserted, “now, can you settle a discussion, it was entirely hypothetical I should add, does a cocktail stick count as a wooden stake?” 

“This was a discussion? Why am I asking, of course it was. Well, wooden stakes don’t actually kill us. Stoker put that in the book as a red herring,” he explained. 

“Huh, that makes sense. What about garlic, is that a thing?” she asked. 

“It’s not poisonous to us, more of an irritant. Crucifixes however were another embellishment, a reflection of the times I suppose” Bella began to speak, but Edward pre-empted her with the answer, “we do have reflections and shadows, but we can get rid of them if we want.” 

“I know I’m bombarding you with questions, but just one more. Are there witches and werewolves?” she asked in a rush. 

“Yes,” he replied. 

“I know I said just one more question, but seriously, no elaboration?” she demanded in curious frustration. 

“It’s time for class,” he said laughing. 

“Oh,” said Bella, looking up from their little bubble to realise that the cafeteria was in fact nearly empty. 

They made it to class as Banner was just starting, but he didn’t rebuff them beyond a look of annoyance. The eyes of the class followed her all the way to her seat and Angela gave her a surprisingly knowing smile as she passed. Given the thin ice they were already on with their late entrance, Bella focussed diligently on taking notes and did her best to ignore Edward, though she did glance over to him from time to time. To an outsider it appeared he was focussing exclusively on the lesson, but she saw how his chair was tilted towards her, meeting her eyes whenever she glanced over. It struck her that given the fact modern science didn’t know about vampires, and now apparently witches and werewolves, that there was no way to know that what they were learning was actually true. 

When class wrapped up Bella was again unsure of herself, should she say goodbye, walk with him? When would she see him again? Edward stood patiently next to her as they packed up their books and she decided to just take the issue into her own hands. 

“Do you want to come to my house after school?” she asked in a rush, “We can do... homework.” 

“I’ll meet you after gym,” he agreed with just a tiny moment of hesitation. 

Mike was in a huff as they walked to gym, but Bella didn’t let it ruin her good mood, eventually he’d accept that they were just friends and hopefully would go back to his usual self around her. In gym they switched to soccer, which Bella wasn’t much better at than volleyball, but she could at least help her team by getting in the opposition’s way and have it called strategy, which was something. As promised Edward was waiting for her outside the gym and to her surprise was having a pleasant looking conversation with Angela. She smiled as Bella, Mike and Jess approached and it was revealed that he was talking to her about an assignment they had for History and what they were planning to do for it. 

“Hi,” Bella greeted trying to hide her surprise. 

“Hello Bella, Mike,” Edward greeted, nodding to Mike who was stood awkwardly surveying the exchange with suspicion. 

“You should join our table tomorrow, Edward,” Angela suggested. 

“You should,” Jess seconded, perhaps enjoying watching things unfolding, or just supporting Angela. 

“I will,” Edward agreed. 

The group all walked to the parking lot together, leaving Bella and Edward at the truck. As they were going to climb into the truck, Edward stopped and looked around disgruntled. Bella was going to ask what was wrong when she spotted Rosalie walking towards them with a face of thunder, which whilst intimidating did nothing to dim her beauty. Her confident stride sent anyone in her way fleeing for cover. Bella looked to Edward for explanation, but he simply looked at her apologetically. Rosalie came not to Edward’s side of the truck, but Bella’s and stood before her at her full height looking her dead in the eye. 

“You’d better come to the house,” she told, rather than asked, then looked at Edward with a deep scowl, “he’ll show you the way.” Then she was away, stomping off to the Volvo without another word. 

After a moment Bella got into the truck and Edward followed after a moment. 

“This isn’t some vampire lair trap is it?” Bella asked, hoping for light heartedness. 

“They want to talk,” Edward said, though clearly looking annoyed, “Esme suggested it was a good idea to meet you. They were meant to wait, I told them to let me invite you, but then they heard I was going to your house again...” 

“They want to meet the person causing all their problems?” Bella assessed. 

“That’s me,” he sighed, “they wanted to meet the one I was recklessly endangering. Trust me, they blame me, not you.” 

“So, I’m meeting your parents and... I’m guessing you don’t call them siblings since they’re dating?” she ventured. 

“Rosalie and Alice are my sisters, at least that’s how we see ourselves. The boys came to us later, they’re like brothers in law I suppose,” he explained. 

Bella pulled out of the parking lot and Edward directed her to the highway. She needed more focus on driving when Edward was in the truck since he was so ample for distraction. She was also aware that with his supernatural abilities he could probably drive better than her in his sleep and she didn’t even know if he could sleep! 

“I’m going to meet your parents,” Bella stated dumbly once they were on an easy straight stretch of road. 

“I’m sorry it's under these circumstances,” he apologised, his face looking all tormented again. 

“If I’d have known I might have worn something different,” she commented, thoughts on her glaringly kitsch Kate Bush T-shirt under a clashing plaid. 

“You look,” he paused shyly, “good. Very you.” 

“Thanks,” she blushed, “very me?” 

Edward’s next direction saved him from answering, but she got the comments intended effect which put her nerves out of her mind for a minute. God, she really was going into the lair of a coven of vampires, wasn’t she? Yet, where the fear should be was only excitement that she was meeting her maybe boyfriend’s family for the first time, that was a big deal. God, especially when he had called Mike Newton of all people her boyfriend, vampires were supposed to have good senses for god's sake. But then, humans were meant to have a self-preservation instinct so maybe they were made for one another. 

The Cullen house was out of town hidden in the dense forest; and she would have missed the long drive had Edward not alerted her to its existence. Though Bella didn’t know what to expect, it wasn’t what she was presented with. The house wasn’t some dark, gothic castle, but a bright modern home all trendy wooden cladding and massive glass walls. It looked how the people of the 60s had envisioned the future. She gasped when she saw it and that at least made Edward smile. 

“You can park in front of the garage,” he directed her towards a quadruple garage nearly the size of her own house. 

She parked her truck and Edward used his enhanced speed to race around the front and open her door for her. Bella couldn’t supress her laughter at such an extra gesture but gave him a smile of thanks all the same. Whilst walking to the house she couldn’t help self-consciously messing with her hair. When they reached the house, they stopped for a moment and Edward took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze before opening the door. 

Edward’s parents waited for them in the large entrance hall. She was distracted from her worry, however when she saw that they weren’t as she expected Mr and Mrs Cullen, but two women and Bella realised that she’d never actually heard Dr Cullen referred to as a man before, she had simply assumed. One was tall, a traditionally pretty woman of about 40 with a cascade of long blonde hair, she was wearing a no fuss blazer and trouser combo that would do any 80s lesbian proud; she was as shockingly pale as Edward with the same ochre eyes and could easily be his mom. The other was a petite Chinese woman, her features, less scarily angular than the other Cullens, were at odds with her severe 1920s bob and over-plucked eyebrows; her pallor, whilst pale, looked more human than her wife. 

“Esme, Carlisle this is Bella,” Edward introduced. 

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Esme welcomed her, taking her hand in both of her icy ones and shaking eagerly. 

“Welcome to our home,” Carlisle greeted her, more reserved than her wife, but not outwardly unfriendly. 

“Hi, I understand you have some matters to discuss,” replied Bella, eager to get this, whatever it was, over with. 

“Of course, let's go to the living room. The others are waiting,” Carlisle agreed. 

Esme led them to through the house to a cavernous lounge with a gargantuan bright orange corner couch commanding most of the space. Rosalie and Emmett were sat by the window, Emmett lounging back relaxed with Rosalie sat stiff as a poker, arms crossed unimpressed. Alice and Jasper were closer to the door and Alice jumped up as they entered, running with the grace of a ballet dancer over to them and grabbing Bella in a hug. 

“I’ve been waiting to meet you for such a long time!” Alice exclaimed, her voice high and clear as a bell, “oh you do smell good.” 

“Alice,” Edward tried to chastise, mortified. 

“You have?” Bella asked, ignoring the whole blood thing. 

“Alice is particularly gifted with her telekinetic abilities,” Esme explained proudly. 

“I’ve seen you coming here for a long time,” Alice replied, leading Bella to sit by her on the couch, with Edward trailing behind them. 

“To your house?” she asked sitting down. 

“To Forks,” Alice clarified smiling, “though you’re very difficult to keep tabs on.” 

“Is that the nice way of calling me impulsive?” she asked. 

“Yes!” Alice exclaimed in delight, 

“Oh,” Bella didn’t know what else to say, “cool.” 

“Nothing about this situation is ‘cool’,” Rosalie snapped back looking angrily at them, “our whole way of life, our new situation here is all threatened because of these idiots. Carlisle, sort it.” 

“How have I threatened you?” Bella asked, rankled by the suggestion she was a problem to be sorted. 

“Because you, dumbass human, couldn’t mind your own business, or god forbid react rationally when presented with the impossible. Now here you are, not only knowing our secret, but hanging around Edward just begging for him to kill you and have us chased from the town with pitchforks and torches,” Rosalie explained slowly in a low, dangerous voice that made the hair on the back of Bella’s neck stand up and Edward positioned himself blocking her from Rosalie’s harsh gaze. 

“Rosalie,” Esme chided, voice full of motherly authority. 

“I’m not going to tell anybody,” Bella assured, “and Edward won’t hurt me.” 

“You don’t know that,” Jasper piped up, “and you aren’t exactly experienced with vampires.” 

“We aren’t just concerned with our secret, you understand, Bella. This is about your safety,” Carlisle told her, oozing maternal concern. 

“He hasn’t done anything so far, and that’s more than you could say for most of us,” Alice defended. 

“And we’re supposed to trust the control of the idiot who went and told our secret to the first human that caught his eye?” Rosalie challenged, looking at Bella and Edward’s joined hands in disgust. 

“The first human in over a hundred years,” Esme reminded. 

“You managed it, Rose. You were much younger than Edward and I was covered in blood,” Emmett tried to coax her into a compromise, hand rubbing ‘soothing’ circles on her back. 

“This is not the same,” Rosalie asserted tone ice cold, jerking away from his hand. 

“This isn’t our choice to make,” Esme told the room with a note of finality, “our choice to live this way always had risks. We made this choice knowing we’d have to trust one another. Now it’s our time to trust Edward. You don’t need to like this fact, but you do need to respect it.” 

“Your mother is right,” Carlisle agreed, face drawn still with concern, appealing directly to Rosalie. 

“Fine. But you will not say I didn’t warn you when this ends in disaster,” Rosalie told the room seething with anger and stormed out the room with Emmett running after her. 

“Rosalie’s very protective, give her time and she’ll come around,” Alice reassured her confidently. 

“Do you not see anything about what will happen?” Bella couldn’t help asking. 

“I see lots of things, but nothing is decided yet,” Alice told her cryptically before giving her a bright smile. 

“I’ll show you my room,” Edward invited, embarrassed at the implication in front of his family.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re determined to see the best in me,” he asserted in fond exasperation, joining her on the couch again, sat closer this time. 
> 
> “I see what’s there,” she insisted, “and it sounds like you’ve been in a feedback loop about this for a hundred years. It isn’t nice to hear a person you care about talk about themselves that way, so you aren’t allowed to anymore.” 
> 
> “Oh?” he asked in mock challenge. 
> 
> “Yes. No mental self-flagellating, you feel bad which is understandable, expected, but you’ve lost your evil angsting privileges. You’re a vampire, a part of nature, a person, get over it,” she told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edward-centric chapter

Edward’s room burst from the seams with things, a full wall was packed to the rafters with shelves laden in records of every decade and genre imaginable, a top of the range record player to accompany it. A desk piled with books was stuffed into the corner and it seemed he’d chosen to forgo a bed in favour of more space, having instead a small black leather couch against the vast wall of windows. Full as the room was, it wasn’t as messy as Bella would expect of a teenage boy's rooms, no dressers bursting with clothes and she could make out most of the floor. It heartened her to see the lack of perfection, the disarray and immense lived-in feel of the room Edward had let her see, it was so immensely personal. 

Not that she expressed these feelings, “Is this a Spice Girls album?” she asked, barely containing laughter. 

Edward looked wounded and walked over to her, taking the vinyl protectively from her grasp, “it is a classic.” 

“Uh huh?” she couldn’t tell if he was joking. 

“Your generation,” he muttered darkly under his breath. 

“Your generation didn’t let black people vote, so...” Bella pointed out. 

That stopped him in his tracks, “you’ve got me there,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, not meeting her eyes. 

“Political views are important for vetting dates,” she began, “let alone the time you come from. What are your politics?” 

“I lived through the civil rights movement and women’s liberation, I may not have mixed much with humans, but I did get the wisdom they shared,” he assured her. 

“That’s a relief,” she replied, giving him an awkward smile. 

Edward sat on the couch and Bella joined him, which is when the lack of bed really struck her, “no bed?” 

“I haven’t slept for a hundred years,” he revealed, settling back into the couch comfortably, beautiful face serene, sat still as a stone. Bella reached out and traced a finger over his pale hand and wondered if she’d ever get used to how cold he was. 

“Do you miss it?” she asked. 

“I miss dreams,” he replied, which is of course the poetic answer he’d give. 

“A lot of free time I suppose. Wait, can your family hear everything we’re saying?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious. 

“No, the bedrooms are sound proofed for privacy,” he explained, and Bella let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, which of course Edward noticed. 

“I like them, the ones who don’t hate me at least, I’m just not used to everything I say being to an audience,” she explained, blushing. 

“They’re a lot,” Edward remarked. 

“And they could... hear my thoughts and see my future?” she asked. 

“It depends on the person, and the vampire, Jasper’s very attuned with people’s emotions, Alice with the future, Esme can read thoughts, more pictures than words, Rosalie can influence people into doing what she wants, Emmett’s got a way with animals and Carlisle, well she’s mastered her telekinetic abilities over the centuries,” Edward explained, and Bella was relieved to find out her every thought wasn’t being perused by his family. 

“Why doesn’t Rosalie just influence you into doing what she wants?” she wondered. 

“It doesn’t work so well when you know what’s happening. Also Esme would be pissed,” he explained in mock solemnity. 

“No using powers on your siblings or you’ll get grounded, common problems,” Bella laughed, “how did you all come to live together like this?” 

He turned to her then, meeting her eye and evidently settling in to tell a long story. 

“Carlisle was born around 1640, records weren’t great back then so she can only estimate, in England to a puritan vicar. She was raised with a firm belief in good and evil, heaven and hell and back then the idea of monsters was just sensible, servants of the devil walking the earth. When she turned 18, she joined a nunnery to escape a life as a wife and mother. She spent over 20 years in her modest life helping the poor and serving the lord, but then, well, she met a rather clever vampire who thought that since everyone believed an evil being couldn’t tolerate a crucifix or even enter the house of god had joined the same order, hiding in plain sight as it were. She caught the vampire helping herself to one of the nun’s blood and was given the bite by a startled vampire-” 

“Carlisle the nun was bitten in the 1600s by a vampire disguised as a nun, I’m getting that right? Jesus Christ,” she laughed in disbelief. 

“She’s had an... interesting life. She fled to the forest and lived off wild animals, so she didn’t hurt anyone. She has no idea how long she was feral in the forest only that when she rejoined society, on the outskirts of villages at first, it was the 1700s. Learning control her thirst came slowly, but it helped that she’d had a lot of experience resisting things. Eventually she rejoined society, saw what there was to see in England before looking further, she swam the channel to mainland Europe and met other vampires, learnt about her abilities and learnt what she could. Being a woman at the time was a limitation, but along the way she found medicine and loved it. 

But she was always alone. Other vampires couldn’t understand her ‘lifestyle’ and she could never let a human close just in case. She joined the flood of migrants to the states in the 1880s and never left. Female doctors weren’t generally accepted at the time, so she travelled to disease outbreaks where they could do with the staff, which is where she found me in Chicago in 1918 dying of influenza, my whole family gone, so young to just die and she was desperately lonely, she gave me the bite. She’d never had children of her own, but I suppose she saw herself in the parental role, a mentor, someone to set me on the right path. 

She got more than she bargained for with me. You see, I was raised a good little Christian lad and when I awoke to find myself evil incarnate instead of in the kingdom of heaven with my family, well I wasn’t inclined to follow her teachings. Why should I suffer daily, fighting against my true nature when I had been cursed as I had. Snatched from the arms of paradise to live forever, an ungodly abomination. So, I had what pleasure I could, feasting on the unfortunate souls I came across, rejecting my creator’s teachings of humanity and restraint,” he told before stopping staring into the distance, too ashamed to look Bella in the eye. 

“Then what happened?” she prompted after a while, taking his hand in hers in an attempt at comfort and distraction. 

“When those first months of bloodlust abated, I found that I took no joy in giving into my base desires, I was no worse than a feral animal. I found Carlisle again and begged forgiveness, for her to show me the way, to attempt some penance for the lives I had taken,” he explained, hanging his head. 

Bella sat staring at him in wonder, not knowing how to react. He had so much shame, and pain. 

“If you wanted to leave, I’d understand,” he told her, dejected, still not meeting her eye. 

“Leave?” she asked nonplussed, “you just told me that after a horrific event of your family all dying and nearly dying yourself, which you definitely have ptsd from, by the way, you were able to on your own fight the urge to feed on your only natural food source because you couldn’t bear to take a life. Why would I want to leave?” 

“Of course, you’d spin it into something that makes me look good. The most compassionate possible interpretation, even if it’s delusional. I’m a killer, Bella!” he proclaimed standing dramatically to pace. 

“Do you feel bad about what you did? Because it sounds like you’ve spent every day since agonising over what you’ve done, that if you could give your life in place of theirs you would. I’m not saying it’s alright that you’re responsible for their death, but it happened, and you will regret it forever. Edward you aren’t a monster,” she explained emphatically, and she was pleased she at least got him to stop his pacing. 

“I’m a freak of nature,” he insisted, finally meeting her eye. 

“I know that must seem true given your upbringing, but you’re as natural as I am else you wouldn’t be here, unless your species was created in a lab. You may think I don’t understand it as well as you because I wasn’t there, but maybe I have better perspective than you,” she challenged him, and he looked at least a little persuaded, or less determined to disagree at least. 

“You’re determined to see the best in me,” he asserted in fond exasperation, joining her on the couch again, sat closer this time. 

“I see what’s there,” she insisted, “and it sounds like you’ve been in a feedback loop about this for a hundred years. It isn’t nice to hear a person you care about talk about themselves that way, so you aren’t allowed to anymore.” 

“Oh?” he asked in mock challenge. 

“Yes. No mental self-flagellating, you feel bad which is understandable, expected, but you’ve lost your evil angsting privileges. You’re a vampire, a part of nature, a person, get over it,” she told him. 

“Well, that’s me told,” he laughed, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to it. 

Bella smiled at the casual affection, not able to fight away a blush. She snuggled in, resting her head on his shoulder not quite ready for story time to be over, “then Esme joined you?” 

“It was 1925, we were living in New York. Carlisle was specialising in Women’s Health, giving poor women access to healthcare, especially the sort that wasn’t quite, well legal or socially acceptable,” he skirted around the issue. 

“Edward are you saying Carlisle was performing illegal abortions in a time when women didn’t have access to reproductive healthcare, because I’m only ever going to think that’s awesome. Clean, safe free abortions in the 20s!” she enthused, laughing at his coyness. 

“She was performing abortions and sterilised women who didn’t want any more children along with just regular medicine, that’s how she met Esme, treating her for a miscarriage, but she was too late, infection had set in and she was dying, at only 35, so she saved her with the bite, she joined our way of life, they fell in love and the rest is history. They got married in 2015, they wanted to wait until it was legal in every state,” he paused and smiled before pulling out his phone and showing her a picture of them all smiling in a registry office, all dolled up in their smart clothes. “We met Rosalie in 1932 in New York, Carlisle found her beaten and half dead by a gang of racists.” 

“Jesus!” she couldn’t help reacting. 

“They didn’t go unpunished,” he assured her with a wry smile, “she tracked down the whole gang and killed them slowly. But she didn’t drink their blood, didn’t want any part of them. Be very afraid of someone with that much control. We may have our vast differences, but even I can admit we’re very lucky Rosalie is on our side.” 

“Yeah, you are! She may want me to never come near any of you again, but like, she’s amazing!” She enthused. 

“Somehow I think she’ll end up coming around to you,” he teased lightly. “Alice was in an asylum when we met her in 1940, the threshold for being institutionalised was very different in those days. She’d been a disobedient ‘hysterical’ daughter to her rich father, so he had her committed to make her more docile. She escaped before they could force a lobotomy, how she managed it I have no idea, but she was taking strong sedatives and as she was fleeing got hit by a car. She was taken to the hospital Carlisle worked at and...” 

“Carlisle really does just see tragic dying teenagers and goes into mom mode, huh?” Bella remarked in praise and jest. 

“Her profession may be medicine, but she lives to take in waifs and strays. For a while we thought she’d be the last, that our little family was complete, and we were settled in New York. Then the war came in 41 and I wasn’t a soldier for obvious reasons, Carlisle faked me some papers so I could still join the effort without being shipped off. I spent the war in a munition's factory, Carlisle was obviously kept busy, Rosalie and Alice were still too new to mix with people, but they did their part knitting and sewing for soldiers, sorting food for the poor. Esme had the worst time of it, obviously she’d suffered before from racism, but with the Pacific war it got far worse what with the internment camps. She isn’t even Japanese, she’s Chinese, but, well a lot of folks didn’t care about that. 

Life went on after the war, or afterlife I suppose. Then one day in 64 Rosalie went hunting, we’d been travelling around the South for some time, she found one young Emmett McCarty who had also been hunting solo and had been mauled by a bear. Rosalie took one look at him, bleeding and injured as he was and decided he was the one, she killed the bear and carried him through the forest for hours for Carlisle to save him. When it became apparent she wouldn’t make it in time she gave him the bite herself, how she had the control to not kill him I have no idea, maybe because he was weak already and had lost a lot of blood, maybe just because she’s Rosalie. She rocked up a few days later with him. He and Jasper weren’t given the bite from Carlisle, it's another reason we’d never see them as siblings. 

Jasper wasn’t a chance meeting, he was already a vampire, has been since the civil war, he lived the usual life of our kind. When we reached Texas, Alice began having visions of him and sought him out, they courted, she converted him to our way of life, and he joined us. It was when he was in control enough around humans and we were all adolescent vampires and humans, that we decided to have a normal high school experience to socialise us.” he finished his story. 

“Wow. And that wasn’t even in detail. It’s kinda hard to comprehend how long you’ve lived,” she admitted. 

“I feel that way myself sometimes. If it helps, time passes differently for us. Maybe it’s the always being awake, or the perspective all the years bring. I very much still feel seventeen,” he explained, with a little smile, before sitting up in his seat, “but you need to be getting home.” 

“Wha-” she asked, realising the room was dark around them, having been so captured in the story and Edward’s presence, “shit, what time is it?” 

“Nearly seven,” he checked his phone. 

She pulled out her own phone and yep, she had a bunch of messages from her dad. They weren’t panicked yet but could soon become that way and she quickly texted back that she was at a friend’s house and had lost track of time and was heading home now. 

“Ride back with me?” she asked, “but I get it if you don’t wanna make your own way back...” 

“Yes, I hate running in the woods, I’m so unused to it,” he deadpanned, “what sort of gentleman would I be if I didn’t see you home?” 

When they came downstairs Esme and Carlisle were relaxing on the sofa watching some documentary, which they paused to speak to them. 

“I’m seeing Bella home now,” Edward told them. 

“It was lovely to meet you, Bella. Don’t be a stranger,” Esme bade her goodbye. 

“Give my regards to Chief Swan,” Carlisle told her. 

“Thank you, I will,” she said, fighting a blush as they left. 

The ride back to her house was passed with little conversation, but they were comfortable, as though their hours of talking had been enough and they could just enjoy one another’s company. Bella had also given Edward the aux cord, so she was more than happy to listen to his ‘eclectic’ mix. She stopped a little ways away from home so her dad didn’t see Edward get out and run into the woods. She knew she should be going inside but she didn’t want to leave the little bit of peace they were enjoying together. 

“I should go,” he stated. 

“I know,” she replied. 

“I don’t want to go,” he revealed and leant over and kissed her, far more chaste and gentler than their kiss before, but it took her breath all the same. Then he was pulling away and getting out of the truck. “I’ll be asking the questions tomorrow,” he informed and he was gone into the night. 

Charlie was in the living room nursing a beer and watching soccer when she got home, which he turned off as she entered the room. Oh, they were going to have a little chat. She sat down on the sofa next to his armchair and tried to look calm. He didn’t seem angry, but certainly had something on his mind. 

“Sorry I didn’t text you dad, I completely lost track of time, it won’t happen again,” she apologised, starting by acknowledging her mistake seemed the right way to go. 

“I’d appreciate it. I don’t mind you going out, in fact I’m glad you’re making friends, but I like to know you’re safe. Were you at Jess’?” he asked, and she was tempted to say yes, but, god, hopefully Edward would be a recurring part of her life, she had to tell him some time. 

“No. I was at Edward’s house. The one who gave me a ride home after the car crash,” she told him, trying to at least remind him that the person, the boy, she’d gone AWOL with was the good guy who’d helped her when in need, but he didn’t exactly look happy. 

“Dr Cullen’s son? You were at his house all this time?” he asked, protective dad mode activated. 

“His parents were home,” she assured him on instinct, “we’re dating.” 

Charlie was both reassured, then bewildered and vaguely disapproving. 

“Since when?” he asked, interrogation face on. 

“Today, officially, his parents wanted to meet me, so we went there,” she explained and his disapproval slowly receded. 

“Then I’d like to meet him too and his parents, in that capacity. And I expect you to tell me if you’ll be at his house from now on. And if he’ll be here,” he tacked on after a moment, realising his teenage daughter and her boyfriend would have access to an empty house for hours uninterrupted 5 days a week. 

“Don’t worry, I will dad,” she assured him, though he didn’t look too reassured, “have you had dinner?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who’d want to turn a ginger into a vampire?” Bella levelled at Edward much to the table’s amusement. 
> 
> He opened his mouth as though to retort, but closed it again as though thinking better of it, “I thought us dating meant you would be nice to me.” 
> 
> “You were the one who brought up the fact I’m gravitationally challenged,” she shot back, but she could see he was only mock hurt. 
> 
> “Being a ginger vampire would suck, double the chance of getting burnt by the sun,” Jess chipped in. 
> 
> “I’m lucky I made it through the parking lot, then,” Edward joined in, “though my family is from Chicago to be fair, not much risk of sun there.” 
> 
> “It’s why you’re so pale, you blend in with the snow,” Angela joined in. 
> 
> “What’s the natural predator of Chicago?” Lee asked. 
> 
> “Kanye West,” Mike finally joined in the conversation. 
> 
> “He’s from Chicago?” Lee questioned. 
> 
> “Yeah, I mean, he lives in LA now,” Mike confirmed nonchalantly, though Bella suspected he rather enjoyed his music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My updates will be less frequent from now on, but no worries I'm very committed to seeing this bad boy through to the end

Her friends were waiting eagerly for her when Bella arrived at homeroom the next day. She understood the intrigue, the new girl with the mysterious loner, especially since she’d been insisting they weren’t involved before she was caught out yesterday afternoon. Jess at least looked excited rather than annoyed at her secrecy, with Angela smiling beside her; Mike was also antsy, but far less happy about it. Before diving in for the questioning Bella decided to draw it out a little, tease them a bit. 

“Hey guys, what’s up?” She greeted with an attempt at a casual smile. 

“What’s up with us?” Jess levelled at her in sarcastic disbelief, “no offence, guys,” she addressed to Mike and Angela, “but we aren’t the interesting ones here.” 

“And why would that be?” Bella asked in mock innocence, which at least seemed to amuse Jess as much as it frustrated her. 

“Hmm, let me think. You’ve been exposed to a different culture in Pheonix, you’re very good in English class,” she pretended to list off, “oh, and Edward Cullen was waiting for you after school yesterday! You said you didn’t even know him.” 

“I didn’t for a while. At first, we were just lab partners, but now...” Bella explained, cheeks heating in embarrassment at being under this kind of scrutiny. 

Angela looked sympathetic at such treatment in stark contrast with Mike who seemed appalled with the suggestion there was anything more to their relationship. Jess, however, was buzzing with excitement at the information. 

“But now?” she prompted, not appreciating her awkward pausing. 

“Now we’re hanging out,” she answered truthfully, very aware that as the information link between the Cullens and the human townsfolk she had an extra responsibility for everything she let slip. 

“I thought he was really weird to you,” Mike pointed out as though he’d caught her in a falsehood. 

“He was. Apparently, there was family stuff going on and he basically forgot how to socialise,” she explained, which was kind of true. 

“Are you dating?” Jess asked eagerly. 

Damn, a yes or no question, her subterfuge wasn’t good enough for those yet. 

“Yeah,” she confirmed. 

“Since when?” Mike demanded, failing to act casually unconcerned. 

“Yesterday,” she revealed also truthfully, and Jess looked satisfied she hadn’t been left out of the loop. 

“Isn’t it a bit soon, I mean, you’ve only been here a few weeks, you don’t really know him,” Mike critiqued. 

“Wow, thanks Michael. I guess that also means we aren’t friends,” she responded coldly at the old one two of him simultaneously implying they weren’t friends, and that she was easy, “since I’ve known you for the same length of time.” 

“Jesus Mike,” Angela chided, turning on him, firmly taking Bella’s side. 

“Yeah, what the hell Mike?” Jess called him out and he at least seemed regretful as he was faced with three angry teenage girls. 

“I just meant like, you know us, we’ve been to your house,” he defended. 

“So has he,” Bella let slip and Jess gave her a look which promised they’d speak more about it in Spanish class. 

“It’s not like you’re heading to Vegas to elope,” Angela pointed out, “we just haven’t had much chance to get to know the Cullens.” 

“More like they never gave anyone the chance,” Mike muttered. 

It struck Bella that she could do some damage control for the family who didn’t know how to socialise. 

“I got the vibe,” Bella began, “and don’t tell anyone else, but they’ve moved around a lot before they lived with Dr and Mrs Cullen. It seemed like they’ve stopped trying to make friends because there was no point, you know, if they were only staying somewhere for a few months.” 

All three of them seemed to accept what she was saying and even Mike looked like he felt a little bad for judging them. 

“God that’s gotta suck!” Jess exclaimed, “Are they staying here?” 

“Until graduation at least,” she confirmed and then something struck her, “I didn’t realise Dr Cullen was a woman.” They laughed at the revelation, “so, I went to meet his parents expecting to meet his mom and dad,” she explained embarrassed. 

“And you got surprised by lesbians,” Angela laughed. 

“Wait, you’ve met his parents?” of course Jess picked up on that. 

“Yesterday,” Bella rushed to assure, before realising she should probably explain away how serious it sounded, and well, how serious it was, “we were hanging out at his house and it would’ve been weird not to.” 

“Alright, Mrs defensive. It’s a good sign!” Jess chided her solemnity, “just quite a big step.” 

“My dad wants to meet him,” she bemoaned, “and his parents, you know, like officially.” 

By the time they were in homeroom Bella had managed to move the conversation on to a podcast both she and Angela liked and Jess, apparently versed in it through Angela occasionally chimed in with a comment, pausing from her chat with Mike about a possible upcoming weekend trip to La Push. If anything, this lured Bella into a false sense of security which she instantly regretted when it came time for Spanish with Jess who had obviously been holding back on some of the more personal questions while in the presence of Mike. 

“Is this a shared trauma thing?” Jess asked when they were completing independent work, “the whole nearly getting hit by a van together thing?” 

“Uh, god, maybe?” Bella admitted, the van incident had certainly begun things. 

“Not that I blame you. Best looking guy in school,” she appraised approvingly. 

“Yeah, my dad is real freaked out that I have a free house every day after school,” she told her. 

“God, every dad’s worst nightmare,” she laughed, “wait, have you two...” 

“What?” Bella asked, baffled. 

“Have you, you know,” she attempted to prompt before giving up, “have far how you gone?” 

“Oh, uh, just like kissed,” she told her blushing. 

“Nice! When’s your next date?” she asked keenly. 

“I don’t know. I wanted to seem kinda casual,” she told her. 

“But he’s sitting with us at lunch, that’s good,” Jess commented. 

“What about you?” Bella tried to change the subject, “is there anyone you like?” 

“Well,” she hesitated, “there is someone, but it's complicated. They like me, but...” she began, and Bella was psyched up to be come out to when their teacher began addressing the class again and the conversation ceased. 

Lunch arrived and Bella was surprised to find Edward already sat with her friends, tray of food in front of him. She felt both happy that he was obviously serious about getting to know her and her friends, but also worried; a perk of spending time only with other vampires is that they didn’t question when he didn’t eat and she had no idea how he’d pull that off. Edward was sat with Lee on one side and an empty seat on the other, presumably waiting for her, to Bella’s surprise the usually meek Lee was chatting with Edward quite happily. Mike looked appalled at the turn of events much to the amusement of Lauren who was ceasing her opportunity to have his full attention and discussing the proposed trip to La Push enthusiastically. 

Jess took her place next to Angela who had been eating and observing the goings on quietly, but they soon began chatting about their respective classes. Bella sat beside Edward having no idea how to interact with him around her friends, so when in doubt decided to act normal, just without the allusions to vampires. 

“Hello Bella,” Edward greeted, turning to her, cutting off his conversation with Lee who didn’t seem to mind and instead joined in with Mike and Lauren. 

“Hi,” she greeted, looking at her tray rather than at his face, suddenly shy. 

“Lee and I were just discussing how I look like a certain protagonist in a vampire film you all saw,” he informed her with a sly smirk, it seemed the inspiration for her discovery had been found out. 

“You’d make an awful vampire,” she told him to spite his smug amusement. 

“And you’d make a better one?” Lee asked, tuning back into their conversation. 

“Obviously,” she smiled. 

“I’ve never seen a clumsy vampire before,” Edward teased back. 

“Ooh,” Lauren joined in the joke, “you’ve got to defend your honour, Bella!” 

“Who’d want to turn a ginger into a vampire?” Bella levelled at Edward much to the table’s amusement. 

He opened his mouth as though to retort, but closed it again as though thinking better of it, “I thought us dating meant you would be nice to me.” 

“You were the one who brought up the fact I’m gravitationally challenged,” she shot back, but she could see he was only mock hurt. 

“Being a ginger vampire would suck, double the chance of getting burnt by the sun,” Jess chipped in. 

“I’m lucky I made it through the parking lot, then,” Edward joined in, “though my family is from Chicago to be fair, not much risk of sun there.” 

“It’s why you’re so pale, you blend in with the snow,” Angela joined in. 

“What’s the natural predator of Chicago?” Lee asked. 

“Kanye West,” Mike finally joined in the conversation. 

“He’s from Chicago?” Lee questioned. 

“Yeah, I mean, he lives in LA now,” Mike confirmed nonchalantly, though Bella suspected he rather enjoyed his music. 

From there the conversation moved to other celebrities from Chicago and pondering that since both Kanye and Shane Madej had moved to LA from there whether or not Chicagoans counted as an invasive species. Bella tuned out of that particular conversation and turned her attention to Edward, seeing that the girls had broken off into their own similar group. Edward gave her a small private smile which she happily returned. It was in that distraction that she saw how Edward had disguised his lack of eating, the food was in little pieces hidden in the napkin and packaging and he would bring it to his mouth as though to eat then bring it back down and hide it when no one was looking. 

“How were your classes?” Edward asked her. 

“Very informative and fun,” she replied in false cheerfulness, “no, they were alright. We’re studying The Goblin Market in English. I’d read it before, didn’t realise at the time what it was about... How about your classes?” 

“You’re saying it isn’t about a market of goblins?” he laughed, “We’re learning about the first world war in history,” he told her with a significant look. 

“I wonder what it’d be like to live through that,” Bella wondered aloud, playing along. 

Soon enough lunch had ended, and she was off to Biology, somehow it was easier to focus with Edward next to her now knowing she had time to interact later, no longer limited to their one class together. They were learning about Cellular Respiration and she buckled down and made good notes, raising her hand to answer multiple times. And sure, maybe she was showing off a little bit, but science was one of her favourite subjects, so... all's when that ends well. 

They dawdled again whilst packing their things and looked at one another wondering who would be the one to ask when they’d next spend time together. After a pregnant pause Bella rolled her eyes and decided to take the plunge. 

“You know in your day, the man was supposed to ask the woman out,” she pointed out, “which is outdated, sure, but you could do it sometimes.” 

“Would you like to see each other after school?” he asked, embarrassed, leading them out of the classroom. 

“Wow, like you read my mind,” she deadpanned, “yes, I’d like to.” 

“We could go somewhere,” Edward suggested, though without much enthusiasm. 

“Or we could hang out at my house again,” she suggested, biting back a smile. 

“On one condition,” Edward told her, they’d reach the place they’d have to split up to go to their respective classes. 

“Uh huh?” 

“It’s my turn to ask the questions,” he told her, smirking. 

“I’m sorry,” she started loudly before looking around at the students and lowering her voice, “I’m sorry I find the existence of the supernatural so interesting!” Edward simply rolled his eyes and walked away to his next class. 

Gym class dragged by, but at least Bella escaped sustaining or inflicting any injuries. It seemed that coach recognised that whilst she’d never make any kind of athlete, she was at least willing to put in the effort and be a team player and he seemed to respect that. Edward was again waiting outside the gym with Angela, and they were chatting away about some protests that were currently taking place in DC against a proposed bill restricting abortion access, sober as it was, they seemed to be enjoying one another’s company. 

“Hi,” Bella greeted them, and Edward turned and gave her one of his golden, dazzling smiles and she may have gasped slightly, which of course he caught with his super hearing. 

As she avoided his eyes, cheeks flaming, she saw that a similar, if slightly more toned-down exchange was happening between Jess and Angela and after a while Mike coughed, annoyed by being ignored by the couples surrounding him. 

“Hi Mike,” Angela greeted, “you dominate the other team as usual?” Angela asked, indulgently giving him her full attention as he happily told her all about his goals. 

“Did you dominate the game?” Edward asked in Bella’s ear as the group began walking to the parking lot. 

“You’ll find me in the Basketball hall of fame any day now,” she retorted. 

“How was Geography?” she asked, but he held up his hand to stop her and after a moment of blank staring she remembered, “your question asking is starting now? I can’t ask you anything?” 

“Not for now,” he told her with a smirk. 

The group left them at the truck and Jess, subtle as a firework, gave her a big thumbs up, mouthing ‘good luck’ when Edward was turned to get into the passenger side. Bella waved her goodbye with a laugh and also climbed into her seat, when she was settled, she handed Edward the aux cord providing he didn’t put on any 90s pop. The music that began playing was some soft folksy number which she didn’t know the artist of it was nice all the same and she nodded her approval as they got in the line of traffic out of the lot. 

“What’s your favourite colour?” he asked as they pulled onto the highway. 

“Green,” she responded casually eyeing his posture which was the polar opposite of before, he was sprawled in his seat, facing her. 

“Don’t you get enough of that here?” he asked, gesturing out the window at the curtain of green either side of the road. 

“Must mean Forks is perfect for me,” she quipped. 

“Favourite band?” he continued. 

“Uhh... Blondie,” she finally arrived at. 

“Huh,” he nodded slowly, “makes sense.” 

“Yeah?” she asked, puzzled at the way he said it. 

“The attitude,” he replied smugly. 

“Wow... I’m gonna take that as a compliment,” she responded. 

“I’d have thought it was pretty obvious I like your attitude,” Edward teased back, stumping her, and she was glad she was on a straight stretch of road, Edward didn’t often give compliments, which of course made them far stronger when he did. 

“You like when I’m mean to you?” she asked slyly when she’d regathered her faculties. 

“I don’t not,” he finally replied when he’d taken in what she’d said and if he were human, he would have blushed, “you surprised me. I thought I could brush off the cold shoulder, but no, you wouldn’t take any of my shit.” 

“You’re used to dazzling people into your own way,” she concluded. 

“Dazzling?” he asked perplexed, “do I dazzle you?” 

“You know you do. It’s basically weaponised,” she teased. 

“That’s the weaponised part of me?” he chuckled. 

That’s when they arrived at the Swan house and their banter took a brief break, Bella grabbed a bag of pretzels from the kitchen and they made their way to her room, this time no stopping to wonder where to go. They settled on her bed and Edward chuckled when she cosied herself under her comforter and got stuck into her snack. 

“What’s your favourite food?” he resumed his questions. 

“Cheeseburgers,” she confessed with a smile, “greasier the better. Wait, were cheeseburgers invented when you last ate food?” 

“It’s my turn to ask the questions,” he chided, but didn’t answer. 

“That’s a no isn’t it,” she laughed. 

“Burgers existed, but cheeseburgers weren’t popular until later,” he told her. 

“Oh,” she replied awkwardly, repressing a smile. 

“Favourite book?” he asked 

“Wuthering Heights,” she told him. 

“How can you like it?” he wondered aloud, “the characters are all so horrid to one another, selfish and cruel with no redeeming features.” 

“But none of them were born that way, that’s the whole point. In different circumstances they could all be completely different. But things aren’t that way and instead their love is the redeeming feature,” she explained, hand movements expressing her conviction. 

“And it dooms them all to miserable lives,” Edward argued. 

“But they aren’t doomed,” she came back, “they make bad decisions and give in to their base urges. Bronte doesn’t argue it represents everyone, but what happens in poor conditions when people are treated badly.” 

“You insist on giving people the benefit of the doubt,” he shook his head in fond disapproval. 

“By understanding that nothing is set in stone and a person is influenced by their surroundings and what is done to them, the characters are an exaggeration of human nature. Now you better not turn this isn’t some angst fest. You aren’t Heathcliffe and I’m not Cathy, you know why?” she confronted. 

“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” shuffling where he was sat. 

“Because we aren’t book characters, we’re real people,” she insisted fondly. 

“I suppose we aren’t,” he admitted. 

“I read it at a formative age and now it's my favourite,” she explained. 

And on and on the questioning went, what she missed most about Arizona, what relatives she had and her plans for college. She answered each question in detail, charmed by his ceaseless curiosity at something as dull as her life. Though it wasn’t a conscious effort, through the hours Bella found they had migrated towards one another and they ended up cuddled in bed, her head rested on his chest as they chatted, caught up in their own little world. In the end, the conversation only stopped when Edward heard Charlie’s cruiser approaching and though he was more than willing to meet the Police Chief officially as boyfriend, Bella urged him to do a vampire disappearing trick and she got to enjoy watching him climb out her window and shimmy down the drain pipe and run off into the forest so her dad wouldn’t see him leaving.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur sniffed it happily, but wasn’t phased by the vampire and instead started rubbing against his hand with his head for pets, which Edward gladly administered. Once satiated, Arthur walked to the living room door and started wining at it. 
> 
> “Looks like someone needs to pee,” Bella remarked, opening the living room door and leading him to the backdoor, letting him into the modest, fenced in yard, Edward following behind her. Arthur ran to the end of the yard and took care of business before getting himself well acquainted with the yard. 
> 
> “Hi,” Bella finally greeted Edward properly, giving him a chaste kiss. 
> 
> “Hello,” Edward returned. 
> 
> “You look very... smart,” she surmised, giving him an appraising look. 
> 
> “I couldn’t wear jeans to meet your father for the first time,” he shuddered at the thought. 
> 
> “Yeah, its not like he’s wearing jeans,” she laughed, “or that he’s seen you in jeans before.”

The rest of the week continued the same, Edward coaxing every possible detail about her life, her likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests. Bella remained baffled as to how he could find her quite so interesting, but he kept asking so she kept answering. He seemed to be having a good time and she enjoyed just being in his presence, so it seemed to be a perfect set up for the two of them. In truth, Bella was a little embarrassed by how much she enjoyed their time together since they’d known one another for barely a month, whiling away the hours staring at his beautiful face and spending time and attention coaxing out his lighter, more playful side that he seemed to have buried deep down for such a long time. At first it was just because she loved his smile, but when she began to see more of his younger, more carefree self she became determined to make their time together a place he could completely relax. 

The new development of having a boyfriend along with a group of friends to hang out with was quite the culture shock for Bella and she encountered a steep learning curb for organising her time. It felt like she’d barely gotten to Forks when it came time to pick up their newest family member. When Saturday came she was excited and nervous in equal measure, after a long talk with her dad they had settled on a name for their new buddy, unfortunately it wasn’t one of her friend’s suggestion, but instead a sensible, distinguished name; he would be called Arthur. She was nervous because Charlie had told her to invite Edward over in the guise of meeting the new puppy, but Bella knew it was really so he could meet him officially as her boyfriend. Though he had come over after school for the rest of the week, she hadn’t told Charlie that, it wasn’t as if they weren’t allowed, she just wanted to keep their shiny new relationship to herself for a little while. 

They rose early on Saturday and headed to the local pet store, Bella had been googling pet care and whilst she was pretty drilled on how to train a puppy, she was still surprised by just how much stuff they needed to get. And okay, maybe they didn’t strictly need every single item, but Bella had a feeling Charlie was going to fall hard for this puppy and they’d end up picking this stuff up along the way anyway. They picked up two beds, one for downstairs and one for upstairs (they’d not talked about it, but it was pretty obvious the dog would sleep in her room), a puppy harness, a large dog harness, a leash, a cute matching ceramic food and water bowl set, a big ol’ bag of puppy kibble, training treats, poo bags, chew toys, tug of war toys, a Kong, dog safe peanut butter, a frisbee, a brush, dog shampoo, dog nail clippers, a gigantic crate and the cutest little polka dot bandanna Bella had ever seen. 

Her dad’s deputy lived in town and they were greeted warmly and brought into the living room, which was taken over by dogs, with the couches moved to fit the puppy enclosure. There were only three puppies remaining and they rushed to greet the strangers, their mom, an exceedingly tired German Shephard looking glad of the reprieve. The puppies were little balls of energy, jumping at the pen to be given attention and Deputy Jones just laughed when Bella and her dad beelined over to greet them in favour of any more niceties. 

“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot recently,” he chuckled, settling himself on the couch as Bella’s hand was rushed by puppies wanting her attention, “your boy is the one in the green collar.” 

“Can I pick him up?” Bella asked. 

“Oh sure, the pen’s just there so they don’t rush you when you come in,” he explained, “bring him up on the couch, get acquainted.” 

Bella did as instructed and soon she had a lapful of the cutest pup she’d ever met, though she was obviously biased. Charlie, though less effected than her gave him a good set of firm dad pets, which he lapped up. 

“I wasn’t gonna have any pups from her, but her temperament's so good I thought I’d have a litter before I got her fixed. You’re one of the lucky few,” Jones joked. 

“Hello Arthur, you’re a Swan now,” Charlie greeted him, comically serious and he got his sleeved chewed on for his trouble, “that reminds me, here you are,” Charlie got his wallet and handed over a stack of bills. 

“I won’t count it, reckon I can trust you, chief,” Jones jokes and got one of Charlie’s hearty chuckles out of it. 

Arthur was too distracted at being carried to give too much trouble about leaving his mom and was sat in her lap in the car in no time. Bella managed, with copious pets and baby talking, to contain Arthur in her arms, as a loose manic puppy in the car wasn’t exactly the best idea. Bella got him in his harness and walked him around the front of the house whilst Charlie unloaded the cruiser, the crate and bed were settled in the corner by Charlie’s armchair, and his bowls set up, his toys scattered about and his other supplies secured in the kitchen. Bella let Arthur loose to explore the living room and he rushed to the wicker basket of blankets and began his mission of covering them in as much drool as possible whilst trying to liberate every one of them from their hamper, Bella yoinked him from his crimes against blankets as he didn’t yet understand the word no and upturned the basket, so the blankets were no longer accessible. Arthur soon shook off this limitation and familiarised himself with the underneath of all the couches instead. He sought out the crate himself, which was a relief and proceeded to cover his bed in his scent, though she knew he’d soon be classed as a large dog, it was still hilarious to see such a small dog dwarfed by the giant bed. 

Charlie joined them in the living room soon and sunk gratefully into his armchair, and Arthur eagerly climbed his legs and took pride of place on his lap, licking at his face. While Charlie frowned a little at the dog spit, he accepted the dog on his lap and pet him obligingly. 

“You know, Arthur, you won’t be able to do this soon?” he asked him completely seriously, as though asking a fellow adult a very sensible question. 

“Yeah, dad, I somehow don’t think he understands that he’ll be a giant someday,” Bella quipped, taking a seat on the sofa. 

“You’ll be a couch dog,” he informed him, though it was a little undermined by the flop he did onto his back, presenting his belly for pets. 

“We’re supposed to call him his name a lot, so he knows it’s what he’s called, and routine is big. When he goes out to potty, when he walks, when he eats, that sort of thing,” she told him. 

“Like a baby,” Charlie remarked. 

“Kinda,” Bella agreed. 

Arthur soon tired of Charlie’s lap and instead sought out his rope toy, he brought it to Bella and they played tug of war for a good long while. Eventually he seemed to tire himself out and Bella carried him over to his bed, which he settled in gratefully and he was quickly dead asleep in a position which surely couldn’t be comfortable. She shut the crate and left him to his rest, knowing that he’d soon be full of energy and ready to play again. With the lull in constant activity, Bella’s mind wandered to worrying about the upcoming meeting between her boyfriend and dad. It was true her dad had no reason to dislike him, he was on the face of it a good kid from a good family, but he was still a teenage boy after his daughter’s affection so perhaps it was only a natural instinct to give Edward a hard time until he was able to prove himself. Bella was also irrepressibly curious as the how Arthur would react to Edward, dogs could smell bombs and cancer and dead bodies, so it stood to reason he may realise something was amiss. 

Edward arrived when they were just finishing lunch and Charlie did the formality of coming to the door to greet him in the entryway. Edward had clearly dressed up for the occasion, which Bella found both cute and funny, he was wearing a button down on a Saturday! He wore her favourite jumper of his over it, it was cable knit and dark moss green and had no business being as soft as it was. On the bottom he wore black slacks, with a neatly ironed crease down each leg and Brogues! To the outsider he looked like someone trying to make a good impression, but Bella saw through that to a guy not quite sure how to dress in the modern world. 

“Nice to meet you Chief Swan, thank you for inviting me to your home,” he greeted Charlie, proffering his hand for shaking, actually seeming pretty nervous. 

“Hello, Edward,” he curtly acknowledged, taking his hand and giving a strong shake, “god, it’s colder out here than I thought!” he remarked on Edward’s cold hand. 

“I’m having trouble with the heating in my car,” he promptly lied. 

“Ah, car trouble, well I know a good mechanic,” he informed, gesturing him inside, “he rebuilt that truck.” 

“Appreciate the offer, Chief, but my sister Rosalie is the mechanic of the family, she’ll take a look,” he replied, following them into the hallway and closing the door after himself. 

“Yeah?” Charlie asked impressed, taking his light jacket and hanging it up, “she’s the older sister?” 

“Yes, she’s graduating this year,” he answered. 

They walked into the living room and were met with manic, high pitched barking from the crate, Arthur had awoken. 

“We’re supposed to turn away and not acknowledge him until he stops barking,” Bella told them and they all turned away from him, facing the wall. 

The barking continued for a few minutes, growing more pitiful and tantrummy until it wound down and he laid down in defeat. When he stopped, Bella walked over and opened the crate. 

“Is that Arthur?” she asked him, high-pitched, “you’re here? Are you a good boy?” 

He lapped up her praise and pets, before making his way over to sniff the stranger. Charlie got settled in his armchair as Edward cautiously crouched down by Arthur and offered his hand. Arthur sniffed it happily, but wasn’t phased by the vampire and instead started rubbing against his hand with his head for pets, which Edward gladly administered. Once satiated, Arthur walked to the living room door and started wining at it. 

“Looks like someone needs to pee,” Bella remarked, opening the living room door and leading him to the backdoor, letting him into the modest, fenced in yard, Edward following behind her. Arthur ran to the end of the yard and took care of business before getting himself well acquainted with the yard. 

“Hi,” Bella finally greeted Edward properly, giving him a chaste kiss. 

“Hello,” Edward returned. 

“You look very... smart,” she surmised, giving him an appraising look. 

“I couldn’t wear jeans to meet your father for the first time,” he shuddered at the thought. 

“Yeah, its not like he’s wearing jeans,” she laughed, “or that he’s seen you in jeans before.” 

“We already began courting without his consent-” he began, before Bella tried to interrupt him, “I know, I know, it's your decision. But what I’m saying is I’m already going against a lot of etiquette rules that have been drilled into me. This is the compromise,” he gestured at his pristinely ironed trousers. 

“Okay, they’re very nice,” Bella relented, though keeping her teasing tone, “Arthur, Arthur, come here.” 

It took a little goading to get Arthur back into the house and it took the pair of them to corral him into the living room and she got him settled happily playing with Edward before she left to go bag up his poop from the garden. She didn’t know what was worse, the unpleasant task, or leaving Edward and her dad alone in a room so soon. She washed her hands and returned quickly, inviting Edward to sit with her on the love seat and scooping up Arthur into her lap. It seemed Charlie had been waiting for Bella to return, before he began. 

“So, Edward, any college plans?” Charlie began the interrogation. 

“Nothing concrete, we’ve been focussed on Rosalie, Emmett and Jasper,” he explained sheepishly, “we all want to stay near Forks, in this state at least.” 

“No idea of your major?” he asked. 

“Not yet, no,” he replied meekly, embarrassed. 

“Uh huh,” Charlie scrutinised, unimpressed, “I know of Dr Cullen, though we haven’t met properly, but what is it you other mom does?” 

“She’s an architect,” he replied. 

“Huh, designed anything I’d know?” Charlie asked. 

“She mainly homes, when we lived in Alaska, she was specialising in weatherproof houses, a lot of eco log cabins,” he explained. 

“Interesting,” Charlie remarked, biting back how impressed he was. 

“Did she design your house?” Bella asked, thinking back to the bold architectural decisions. 

“She designed the renovations; it was dilapidated before, it was either we fixed it, or it would be torn down,” he explained smiling shyly. 

“Impressive, is it?” Charlie couldn’t help asking. 

“It’s what people in the 60s thought houses would look like,” she told him, remembering all the blocky glass and wood, laughing at Edward’s embarrassed avoidance of her dad’s eyes. 

“How long were you in Alaska?” Charlie continued the interrogation. 

“Three years, it was the first place we all lived together,” Edward told, smiling fondly at the memories. 

“And just how did you all come to live together?” Charlie asked shrewdly. 

“Dad!” Bella exclaimed, she expected gruffness, but not digging into potentially painful pasts, “Edward is a guest, not a suspect.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the arm to apologise, but Edward didn’t seem in any discomfort. 

“It’s okay, we aren’t exactly a common family setup. Carlisle is mine and Emmet’s mother’s cousin, our mom died, and our dad was never around in the first place, so Carlisle and Esme took us in. They began to foster Rosalie in New York; it was through the same foster agency that they found Alice and Jasper. Finding long term homes for teenagers in the foster system is difficult, so when they found my mom’s, they kept sending kids their way and now there are five of us. We went to Alaska, then Esme wanted a change of scene, so we came to Forks,” Edward told the cover story well. 

“And I’m sure our hospital is all the better for the move, we’re only small, quite the get for us by all accounts,” Charlie surmised approvingly, seeming to settle now he’d learnt the backstory of the strange family, “of course it’s only right I meet your parents properly.” 

“I’m sure they’d be happy to,” Edward agreed obligingly, polite smile in place, though Bella could see the panic in his eyes, which she shared, just how would they eat in front of Charlie, or indeed not eat. 

“We could go out to eat,” Bella suggested, thinking quickly. 

“I’m sure they’d like it, they haven’t had much of a chance to see Forks,” Edward corroborated gratefully. 

“Great, well you fix the day between yourselves,” he nodded, glad to have the matter settled. 

“Time to show Arthur my room,” Bella announced standing. 

“And Edward?” Charlie asked, catching her. 

“Sure, he can tag along if he wants,” Bella tried to joke, rushing out the room, Arthur at her heels. 

Edward followed her to her room, but they didn’t speak until the bedroom door was firmly shut, Arthur delighted to have a new room to sniff. 

“Give me a warning if he starts coming upstairs?” Bella asked, smirking. 

“Charlie doesn’t know I’ve been coming to your house after school?” he asked, looking both fond and disapproving. 

Bella took a seat on her bed and lifted Arthur up with her, he proceeded to roll all over the sheets, leaving no inch unmarked with his fur. 

“I thought I’d let him get used to the idea of us dating before I dropped that bomb, but he has his suspicions,” she trailed off, smirking. 

“Your father doesn’t approve?” he asked in genuine concern. 

“That his kid has grown up and wants to date, he isn’t thrilled at the idea, but what dad is? Well, with daughters,” she reassured gently. 

“Maybe he’s right to disapprove,” Edward angsted. 

“Because you think I shouldn’t be dating, or because I shouldn’t be dating you?” she asked, dterminedly patient. 

“You shouldn’t be with someone, something like me,” he continued. 

“Edward, we’ve talked about this before...” she began. 

“I know,” he sighed. 

Bella moved so she was sat against the headboard and maneuvered Edward, so he was sat next to her, head resting on her shoulder and she settled a hand in his messy hair, playing with it idly. Edward leant into the touch and sighed contentedly, releasing some of his tension. Arthur scrambled onto Bella’s lap, his head resting on Edward’s legs and he was soon coerced into giving pets. 

“It’s alright, you’ve thought this way for a long way, its only logical it’ll take a long time for these thoughts to stop,” she soothed, “have you been reading Frankenstein?” 

“Yes,” he mumbled against her shoulder. 

“And would you blame Adam for his actions?” she asked, a mix of firmness and affection. 

“No,” he admitted a little petulantly. 

“Well then,” she concluded a little smugly. 

“How does it feel being right all the time?” Edward asked, moving to meet her eye. 

He leant forward then and cupped her jaw, savouring the warmth of her face as he leant in kissed her slow, but melting with passion. She gasped into the kiss and Edward pressed forward into a deeper kiss, Bella moved her hands, so they rested on the sides of his neck. This was the game they’d been playing that whole week, walking the line between their passionate urges and the caution which they were both minutely aware of. Were it her choice, she’d spend the day like that, warm and cold bodies together, but it was always a matter of time before Edward pulled away be it problem with his control or his traditional values. In the end it was Arthur that prompted them apart, whining at the lapse in attention to him and they pulled away flushed, breathing heavily. Bella brought a hand to her mouth tracing where her lips were kiss swollen. She smiled gently at Edward and they straightened themselves up to make the way back downstairs, nothing like the presence of a parent figure to reinforce self control.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward just smiled his crooked smile and shook his head a little, “no. Perhaps I was more socially adapt then, but I could never have been called verbose, the girls never seemed to like me.” 
> 
> “But look at you!” Bella protested, “were they blind?” 
> 
> “I could ask the same for you? At Forks you have to fight the boys away with a stick, did you date much in your old life?” he asked, completely serious. 
> 
> “No!” she rushed to tell him blushing scarlet. 
> 
> “Then we’ll continue to be baffled by one another,” Edward concluded.

Trying to get a good night’s sleep whilst sharing a room with a puppy was a fool’s errand as Bella soon learnt. Even with a comfy bed and a cuddly toy Arthur would not sleep in his spot in Bella’s room and spent the night pining for his mom. Heart breaking though the noise was, Bella was able to grit her teeth and leave him where he was, it would only be worse later if she didn’t start as she meant to go on with Arthur not sleeping on her bed, it was difficult enough to get comfortable as it was, let alone with a dog who would one day be over eighty pounds. At least she could text Edward for entertainment, since he definitely wasn’t getting any sleep. She’d agonised over how to ask for his number at length before taking the plunge and simply taking his phone from him and putting her number in it and he had seemed to appreciate her initiative. The Cullens were watching a movie together, which seemed a weirdly normal activity for a coven of vampires, middle of the night as it was. Even odder seeing as they were watching Birds of Prey, which, great movie though it was, didn’t seem like the thing for a group of hundred-year-olds to watch together with their parents. Bella left Edward be to absorb the violence and girl power and eventually Arthur settled down and Bella was able to snatch some precious hours of sleep. 

Charlie left early that morning to go fishing with his pals Harry and Billy leaving her with a free house. Bella got up at a decent time to let Arthur into the back yard and give him his breakfast. Since he hadn’t had his second dose of vaccinations, she couldn’t begin his walk schedule and instead spent that time playing a rigorous game of fetch with him instead to fill the time and get out some puppy energy. She crated him whilst she made and ate her breakfast being sure to give him lots of pets and positive reinforcement when she got him out again. Her friends had mentioned wanting to see the puppy, obviously, so she wrote an invite to hangout in the group chat, suggesting they could chill with the puppy, hang out and study together. Jess was the first to accept and offered a ride to the group, Angela seconded, and Lauren confirmed not long after, though apparently Lee wasn’t allowed to go out on Sundays since it ‘was for families’ and Mike was at work. 

They arrived around noon bringing chips and dip and cookies, which were quickly put on the kitchen counter away from the reach of Arthur. The girls greeted Arthur eagerly, fawning over him and baby talking which he lapped up eagerly, not just wagging his tail by his whole body in excitement. They settled in the living room sat on the floor as Arthur flitted between them as and when he pleased. 

“So... Did Cullen get chased out of here with a shotgun, or did it go well?” Lauren asked. 

“We’re going out to dinner to meet his parents officially, which I think is a good sign,” Bella replied, giving the issue to the group for resolution. 

“He doesn’t disapprove,” Jess pointed out. 

“He didn’t like him, but it’d probably be weirder if he did,” Bella puzzled out. 

“Did he interrogate him?” Lauren pressed for details. 

“Yeah, he wasn’t impressed Edward has no plans for college, yet” she replied. 

“To be fair, aren’t the Cullens like loaded?” Lauren asked, “it’s not like he has a scholarship to be worrying about.” 

“Yeah, that’s just for us peasants,” Jess joked. 

“God, imagine having 5 kids to pay tuition for. Rich or not, that’s rough,” Angela pointed out. 

“I mean... foster 5 teenagers and they’re gonna wanna go to college,” Lauren pointed out. 

“Yeah, its almost like the actual problem is the cost of college,” Bella pointed out with a light-hearted chuckle. 

“College being overpriced. Never!” Lauren said in mock disbelief before getting distracted by a lapful of puppy, “hello Arthur, are you a babey? Yeah? You’re the biggest babey in the world?” 

“I assumed your dad wouldn’t like him because of his whole... aloof stranger vibes,” Jess told her. 

“He really tried to make a good impression, made eye contact with a stranger and everything,” Bella corrected, “for some reason in his mind making a good impression equalled wearing slacks.” 

“Yeah?” Jess questioned amused, “did he polish his shoes as well?” 

“He did, actually,” she laughed, blushing. 

“Aww, its sweet he wanted to get your dad’s approval,” Angela chimed in. 

“I think grudging acceptance is what he got, but it’s better than nothing,” Bella concluded. 

They settled down to their respective tasks, Jess helping Bella with trig work, Lauren doing some History assignment and Angela reading Canterbury tales with reruns of Say Yes to the Dress on in the background. It was peaceful with the occasional break for conversation, or paying attention to the dog, Bella hadn’t studied in a group like that before, but she got a lot done and Jess was a natural teacher. After a few hours they had broke for food which they ate hungrily bemoaning some tough assignment or stupid problem they were stuck on. After a last push for productivity, they put away work for the day and settled into watching dumb tv. 

Charlie came home as they were leaving and her friends again froze in the presence of the Chief, but he just gave them a friendly wave and brought his fishing gear inside and with a final wave her friends left. She joined Charlie in the kitchen where he was putting his day’s catch into the freezer, he’d had a successful day and seemed relaxed. 

“What time did they come round?” Charlie asked as he began cleaning out his cool box. 

“Twelve,” she replied. 

“You found a nice group of friends here,” Charlie commented idly, “you’re really settling in.” 

“Yeah, I’ve been lucky,” she agreed. 

Bella left Charlie to make dinner and took Arthur into the garden, after such a lovely weekend she knew she had to do what she’d been putting off. She called her mom. She missed living at home, even missed her mom, but the circumstances of her departure had put such a shadow over their relationship that she had no idea how to talk to her anymore. Every time she thought of calling or texting her mom the same thought came back to her ‘this is the happiest time of her life, why does she need me?’ She picked up after a few rings. 

“Bella!” she’d obviously not expected Bella to be the one to pick up the phone. 

“Hi mom, is now a good time?” Bella asked, throwing a ball for Arthur. 

“Of course, we just had dinner. I have been craving olives, I’m telling you Bells it was a monstrosity what I did to this pizza,” she babbled, exceedingly chipper. 

“But you hate olives?” she asked, her mom's energy a tad infectious. 

“I know! Growing a human, it does things to you. So tell me everything, how’s school? Have you made friends? Have you met any boys?” her mom asked enthusiastically, and of course she caught her pause, “there is? What’s his name? Are you being safe?” 

“Mom!” she bemoaned, blushing, “his name is Edward, dad met him yesterday.” 

“Ooh, it’s serious. What’s he like? How long have you been together?” she began her questioning. 

“He’s nice, quiet. I think Charlie scared him. We’ve been dating for a week, but we’ve known each other since I moved here,” she answered. 

“Yeah? Quiet’s good, like you. He’s respectful?” she asked, going into mom mode. 

“He’s a perfect gentleman,” she assured her, though her mom could never know just how much. 

“And your friends? You’re settling in okay?” she continued pressing. 

“Yeah, we went to a movie last week, some of them came over today, they’re really nice,” she told her. 

“Great, aww honey I’m so glad you’re fitting in,” she said, sounding emotional. 

“How’s the fetus?” Bella asked. 

“The size of a banana,” Renee told her, “next week we can find out the sex, but I already know it’s a boy.” 

“How do you know that?” Bella asked, baffled. 

“You can just tell. I always knew you were a girl and I was right,” Rennee told her confidently. 

“Huh, a little brother,” Bella said, testing the phrase. 

“Phil gets more excited every day. I was showing before, but now it’s a definite bump; when you look at me it just screams baby,” she enthused. 

“You sure are growing a whole ass baby,” Bella commented, “send me a photo of the bump, yeah?” 

“Will do,” Renee agreed. 

“I’ve gotta go, it’s dinner,” Bella told her. 

“Okay, call me soon, love you!” Renee told her. 

“Love you too, mom, tell Phil I said hi,” she replied and hung up. 

She joined Charlie for dinner, and they enjoyed a tasty fresh catch. Monday was full on, she rose early to let Arthur out for his business, spent a good half hour playing tug of war and fetch with him then gave him breakfast, before doing the same for herself and shutting him in his crate with a bowl of water and a Kong full of peanut butter and treats to occupy him before heading to school. Charlie had left too early for work for any of that but would make up for it by going home on his lunch break and letting Arthur out for the bathroom and playing with him for a while to break up the crate time. Bella arrived slightly later than usual to homeroom, but still made it in before the bell. And if the great weekend couldn’t get any better, Mike wasn’t being weird to her anymore! He greeted her enthusiastically and they chatted easily in a group, no weird rifts. 

The day was thankfully uneventful with Mike even making idle conversation with Edward during lunch. Bella and Edward headed to her house again after school, this time she texted Charlie and told him they were studying together. This wasn’t a lie given Bella had been falling behind on work since she now spent her afternoons with Edward where not a lot of homework would get done. This obviously wasn’t an issue for Edward since he had all night to get his work done, but he agreed to the idea with no complaint and it made something warm unfurl in Bella’s belly, it was such a relaxed, workaday thing to do together, it spoke of commitment and longevity. 

“What were your friends like?” Bella asked when they were finally alone together in her truck heading home. 

“What do you mean?” Edward asked, baffled. 

“In your human life. Do you remember it much? It’s just, you talk a lot about how isolated you’ve been from humans, so that’d be the last time you had a regular friendship group,” Bella explained trying to keep her voice casual, though she knew this was a deeply personal subject for Edward. 

“I can remember it, like an old person looking back on their past, but I forget little details now. It’s odd, my senses as a vampire are much better that in comparison my human memories are like comparing an old black and white photo to a high definition one,” he paused for some time, looking out the windshield into the middle distance, “my best friend was called Robert. We lived in the same street growing up, did everything together. His dad wasn’t around, so my family sort of took him in, he slept at our house as much as his own. I went back to Chicago much later on, to see my parent's graves and I checked the public record, you know it never sat right that I didn’t know what happened to him.” 

“Did you find out?” Bella asked, giving Edward a minute to gather himself before he went on. 

“He lived to age 78, got a good job on the board of Agriculture, had a happy marriage, 4 children and 12 grandchildren. I visited his grave, he was buried next to his wife and both graves had fresh flowers,” he told her with a fond smile. 

“That’s the life you could have had,” Bella commented as they pulled up to her house. 

“I most likely would have, but then I suppose I could also just have been dead at a tragically young age,” he replied thoughtfully. 

“And you wouldn’t be here,” Bella smiled at him sadly, unbuckling her seatbelt but not leaving the truck. 

“I wouldn’t be here,” he agreed. 

“Do you ever get jealous? He spent those years having a long fulfilling life and you spent it miserable,” she asked, meeting his eyes. 

“A part of me is horribly jealous, he had a life I could only have dreamed of growing up, but it isn’t my life, I suppose what I feel most now is happy for him. He was loved, got a dream job and married his high school sweetheart, I imagine they even had a picket fence,” he explained. 

“Were there any high school sweethearts you left?” Bella couldn’t help asking, though she knew they were talking about much deeper feelings that his past teen romances. 

Edward just smiled his crooked smile and shook his head a little, “no. Perhaps I was more socially adapt then, but I could never have been called verbose, the girls never seemed to like me.” 

“But look at you!” Bella protested, “were they blind?” 

“I could ask the same for you? At Forks you have to fight the boys away with a stick, did you date much in your old life?” he asked, completely serious. 

“No!” she rushed to tell him blushing scarlet. 

“Then we’ll continue to be baffled by one another,” Edward concluded. 

They didn’t wait any longer and went indoors and let Arthur out of his crate and into the garden. He’d managed very well for his first day in the crate, especially since he’d only had a small break at lunch time, and he hadn’t even torn up his bed or toys. Bella was sure to lavish praise and attention on him and she played a hardy game of chase with him around the garden, when she got tired, Edward took the mantle from her, a little faster than a regular human. They headed inside and settled in the living room and got their books out, Arthur chewing on some toy after quickly lapping his fill of water. 

“Do you think Arthur knows you’re not human?” Bella asked before she began work, “homovampirus.” 

“You never told me you speak Latin,” Edward commented sarcastically, “he doesn’t treat me any differently than another human, but maybe he knows, but doesn’t care.” 

“Arthur and I have a lot in common,” she leant over and pecked Edward’s cheek. 

Charlie found them in the living room sat a respectable distance apart, getting work done and seemed almost disappointed. He greeted Arthur for a good while before he properly greeted them. 

“Hi Bells,” he said warmly, “Edward,” he gave him a curt nod, “has this fella been giving you any trouble?” he gestured down to Arthur who was trying to liberate him of his sock. 

“He hasn’t destroyed anything, or peed all over his crate so pretty good,” she replied. 

“Get much work done?” Charlie asked shrewdly. 

“Most of my English essay,” she replied, holding up her copy of Canterbury Tales. 

“I just did my Biology homework,” Edward replied shyly. 

“Are you staying for dinner, Edward?” Charlie asked, somehow making the invitation sound unwelcoming. 

“Thank you, but I’m expected home for dinner,” Edward told him, putting his things in his bag. 

“I’ll give you a ride,” said Bella, rising and putting her things on the coffee table. 

“See you later, Edward,” Charlie said deliberately. 

For once she was driving him home, rather than seeing him run off into the woods and she was glad at the chance to talk to him a little longer. She remembered the way to the Cullen house, so she didn’t even need to have their conversation interrupted by the giving of directions. 

“What were your parents called?” Bella asked as they pulled away from the house, parents on her mind. 

“My mother was Elizabeth Masen, and my father was Edward Masen Sr,” he told her with a fond, if distant smile. 

“Did you have any siblings? I don’t think I ever asked, but I guess I assumed you would have mentioned them,” she clarified, feeling like a bad girlfriend for not knowing this information. 

“No. It was uncommon for the time, to have only one child. I’m sure my parents wanted more, but there were complications with my birth, my mother had to have a hysterectomy to save her life. Still, as I’m sure you’re aware, having your only child be a son was seen as the much preferable option,” he explained, giving her a wry smile at the end. 

“God, how awful for her, and dangerous too, I can’t imagine there was much finesse,” she shuddered at the thought of early 20th century medicine. 

“It wasn’t quite keyhole surgery,” Edward agreed. 

“What were they like?” Bella asked. 

“My father was a very severe man, extremely practical and hard working. The opposite of a good dad nowadays. He worked long hours, put bread on the table and spent the rest of the time relaxing at his men’s club, or in his study. He was seen as a good man, handed the wages to my mother for the housekeeping and went to church on Sundays, but he wasn’t a warm father, or at all present. A firm handshake or pat on the shoulder when I got a favourable report card, a clip round the ear when I didn’t,” he told her very matter of fact, staring out his window at the greenery. 

“Sounds awful,” Bella couldn’t help remarking. 

“The experience was, but he was a man of his time, was better than many around,” he said simply. 

“No wonder y’all went to war so much,” Bella couldn’t help remarking. 

“My mother was the opposite. She was... warm and kind. I won’t pretend, as her only child I was spoilt. She was devoted and loving always taking in waifs and strays, she reminds me of Carlisle in a lot of ways, though perhaps not so- direct. Were she born in a different time she might have been, but no, mom was very good at keeping on top of things with gentle words only. More flies with honey than vinegar as the saying goes,” he explained, a bright smile taking up his whole face. 

“I’m sorry you lost her so young,” Bella told him as they pulled up to the Cullen house. 

“I miss her,” he said, “but I have another family now,” he leant over to kiss her sweetly, “thanks for the ride.”


End file.
